


Among Waves

by Sam_Seven



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: (But Billie is my waifu so I won't make her suffer too long), (and smut for chapter 7), (because it's an awesome number), (for Billie), Alternate Universe, Blood and Violence, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Frankenstein vibes, Jessamine Kaldwin Lives, Mermaid!Emily Kaldwin, Not Zoophilous, Original version in French, Slow Burn Emdosh, Translation in English, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:33:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 52,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sam_Seven/pseuds/Sam_Seven
Summary: More than a year ago, Delilah Copperspoon attempted a coup to take over the throne from Jessamine Kaldwin. Corvo managed to trap her in a painting but in one last revenge, Delilah changed Emily into a mermaid, condemning her to hide in the seas of Serkonos.Sokolov remembers a brilliant and unscrupulous former student to perhaps realize the unimaginable.





	1. P R O L O G U E

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Entre les vagues](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14445738) by [Sam_Seven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sam_Seven/pseuds/Sam_Seven). 



> I wanted to thank Madman301 on Tumblr for his help and his kindness for assisting me in the translation of this fic. I'm French and write it in my native language first, so some sentences sounded odd in English, so thanks to him, this fic is easier to understand for English readers now!
> 
> I also thank my bear boyfriend: as a cutlery maker, his knowledge about wood and metal helped me alot! I'm almost able to build some Jindosh's Soldiers, now.

Eyes closed, Jessamine was rocked by waves’ song. She could hear them far away, soft and peaceful, teasing rocks on which they were falling. After plentiful rainy days, weather had become merciful again and, despite late evening, she was not cold.

When the Empress opened her eyes again, she faced oblivion: night has eaten the whole world. Although it was not right: sometimes, far away, the moon revealed waves’ foamy beards, making it twinkle.

The chord was hypnotic. Did Emily listen to it too? Did she compose it?

“Jessamine.”

Corvo kneeled near his lover, but she turned away her face, fading to shadows.

“Come to bed.”

“I worry so much, Corvo. It had been sixteen months.”

“I know. But sleeping on the balcony will not help her, she—”

 _She is trapped between the waves_. The Royal Protector did not dare to add this. His fingers skimmed Jessamine’s hand. They were not happy parents, mourning ones neither. They had lost her daughter but Emily was not dead for all that.

Jessamine finally rose and turned her back to rolling black waters. She ended up hating them.

In the huge Dunwall Tower’s room, she started to undress behind a screen, but she felt Corvo’s gaze and she asked him to turn away. They had this exchange since several months, or rather this absence of talk.

“But you—”

“Corvo. I don’t want you to look at me.”

He stepped back like a guard who just have been ordered as the loving man could not comfort her. In the dark, Jessamine removed her shirt, then her pants. The suit, the underwear, then the scars. In the mirror, she stared at the claw marks over her shoulder: rose’s thorns of an unthinkable side had butchered her skin. One of them had hit her cheek and since, Jessamine felt like a side of her face was made of cotton. Delilah’s witches had really enjoyed the Empress covered with blood and disfiguration. They had laughed, wondering if their work would be represented on the coins and the marble busts.

Near her desk, there was an immense portrait of the Empress and her daughter at 10. Anton Sokolov, the artist, had managed to capture the glimpse of maternal love in Jessamine’s eyes that day. But today, no painter, not even the greatest one, could grasp her dreadful tears.

“You are still beautiful for me, Jessamine.”

The Empress was approaching her fifties: she had imagined being marked by wrinkles or liver spots. Instead, fresh wounds had degraded her portrait. She frankly doubted Corvo could think of her as pretty at least, but hearing the compliment relieved her. Knowing he still loved her with the same passion than thirty years ago made her smile.

She laid to bed by his side, she laid between his arms and let him close her to his heart. Corvo said again how he loved her, scars or not, how much he loved the family they had started and tomorrow, he promised, they will find a solution.

“I swear, Jessamine. I’ll do anything to get Emily back.”

“I love you, Corvo.”

“I love you too.”

And outside, the waves were still singing, echoing their murmurs. They were rolling and rolling for kilometers, collinding with boats’ hull, taking crustaceans away, hurling themselves to the beach. Emily could feel the flow cradling her. She was not listening to the music: she took part of it. Her body overtook water’s curves, her head dove and came out with an acknowledged ease. Under the moon’s beams, the scales over her fish-tail were sparkling.

When she had metamorphosed her, Delilah made her unable to inherit the throne, but she made her Empress of Seas. Sometimes sadness took over. Albeit that night was one of those that Emily was joyful, wrapped by the tepid currents around Serkonos.

She missed her parents, she missed Dunwall, but now, Emily was attracted to the waters and her life had become an adventure. She has explored ruins forgotten under the surface, she could swim, warmed by the sun in the water, she had brushed whales and had listened to their romantic complaints. Emily was no longer an heir, she had become a mythological creature, being in line with fascinating stories she was used to read.

It was not selfishness which pushed her away Dunwall, but she had accepted her tail and her new salty universe. Emily did not know how far her father could go to find a cure, she did not know how old Sokolov was wearing his eyes and his joints out on works in vain. She did not know the poor teacher’s head was nodding gently, in the middle of the night, above an encyclopedia.

Her head was light and dove again toward the depth.

Tired, exhausted, mind full of contradictions, Anton Sokolov closed the book, muttering. Delilah had shown a rich imagination when she had condemn Emily to be a mermaid, rare and unreal creature. There were no tracts about woman-fish anatomy and, unless they delivered Delilah from her pictorial prison, Sokolov was unaware of the spell which could free Emily.

Other methods existed, delicate, mostly amoral and unsure. With his ancient hands, his glassy eyes and his age, Sokolov could not do anything, but open books. Suddenly, the teacher had an idea, remembering a student he had before.

Absolutely brilliant and absolutely disturbing.


	2. C H A P T E R  1

The dawn painted the sea gray. Far away, Emily caught sight of fishermen on the desk of their boat: the clumsy wavelets made their pace wobbly. On the contrary, the mermaid moved with royal gracefulness, enjoying the quiet waters. She came near until her hands could reach the wood covered with barnacles.

A cough disrupted the peaceful morning, then she heard a spittle. She grimaced. _Gross, could they stop doing it where I bath?_ Since she had become a mermaid, Emily knew every sewer outfall, every port where fish carcasses are pile up and every bridge where assassins and victims usually meet. Spots she carefully avoided.

The sailor threw a net with clumsy moves, so he started anew a few times. Emily jumped at the chance and swam under the hull to reach the other side. She climbed on the ropes then hauled herself until she saw a crate. She knew these fishermen were careless about their good and let their fruits on the edge. Emily grabbed two apples and dropped the cord, falling in the bath with a splashing.

“What?!”

The fish man ran toward the sound then yelled:

“Esteban! Come and see! I’m sure that fat whale is here again!”

“The one who swipe your shoes?”

“He swiped two apples this time!”

Emily should have fled, but the two serkonians kept amusing her. The first one, Pablo, was pretty sure a sperm whale was harassing him, stealing things when some of them simply fell from the deck. The second, Esteban, was more realistic and tried to explain these sea monsters never come near the coasts. Besides, whales were not bullies.

“I tell you he swiped apples!”

“And where d’you see your fat whale? The water is clear like it was in a bottle. We’d saw your whale!”

The fishermen were still arguing when Emily left them, still snorting. The “fat whale” would rather nibble her breakfast, far from their ears. Maybe she will come again next week just to see what they will have in the crates and, mostly, if Pablo and Esteban still neglect their food.

 

Anton Sokolov had asked to see Emily’s parents very early, so the Empress had postponed all her duties. The philosopher had a proposition but he needed to explain the whole situation before the parents’ decision.

Despite the softness of the blue carpets in the Throne Room, Sokolov had trouble to walk. A lumbago was paralyzing his pelvis, he bowed anyway right before Jessamine asked him to not suffer for so little. Corvo quickly brought a seat and made sure the old man did not need anything.

A remarkable genius in a rusty body, that was the talented Sokolov had become. Time has no pity: this tremendous man had found a cure to the Rat Plague, he had changed the face of the world with surprising machines. Yet, time did not forget him and Sokolov was suffering with various aches.

“I thank you for receiving me, your Majesty.”

“You’re the one thanked, Sokolov, for coming here. You should have asked for Corvo to come to see you.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I wanted to come for I had an idea about Lady Emily: if you accept, it’ll be my last visit to Dunwall, my last trip.”

Sokolov remembered Jessamine with precise details, the Empress before the Delilah’s coup d’état. She had been a serious yet radiant woman, elegant and firm as well. A true ruler of the Empire. Some white hair had started to grow on her temples and she let a strand dangle on purpose, an attempt to hide the crack on her cheek.

“I would accept anything for Emily, Sokolov, you know that.”

“Still, I prefer to give you all the details. If my memory is correct, Lady Emily is swimming near Serkonos, is she?”

“The Dunwall’s waters were so cold for her. I’m serkonian and I know how the climate is warmer, so I advised her to go there.”

Corvo remembered well: the blue lips of her daughter, her soaked shirt and her stunned eyes. She was shaking in the Wrenhaven River, still shocked by her transformation. He had held her in his arms, staring at this tail so unreal, so awful. And he had watched her, going through the slimy waters, sinking in the gray backwash. Emily had aimed for Cullero’s port.

The Royal Protector went two times to his native land. But Jessamine could not leave her throne for too long and she had become so fragile, Corvo never had the heart to leave her alone.

“I’m certain Serkonos’ climate is better for her. Actually, I know someone living in Karnaca, a chance if we think Emily is already in the vicinity. A former student with a great talent—”, Sokolov marked a pause. He stared at Corvo’s dark eyes with a concerned face. “—and not an ounce of morality.”

“What do you mean, Sokolov?”

“I imply that pupil ventured to take part to odd experiences, I even could say macabre ones. We can’t free Lady Emily from the spell, but maybe an “experiment” may cancel it.”

“Surgery?”, asked Corvo quite unsure.

“Sort of. That’s why I wanted to talk to both of you, your Majesty and Royal Protector. A surgery could be very risky: there is no treatise about mermaid anatomy, however, mastered knowledge about human body and aquatic fauna could be useful. Nonetheless, failure is still possible, but after all the theories I thought about, this is the only one worth considering.

Jessamine was looking at Corvo. She kept her word: she would do anything for Emily, as long her daughter could become what she was once: a young lady on her feet, able to walk on terra firma.

“Who is this former student?”

“His name is Kirin Jindosh. I remember him at the Academy of Natural Philosophy: reserved at first sight, he has surpassed all the other students, even teachers I may add. Sadly, he has always laughed at ethics: Jindosh doesn’t care about limits.

“This isn’t a comforting description.”

“I know, but it’s better if I hide you nothing about his personality. Still, believe me: if I talk about Jindosh today, that’s because I estimate him clever enough to accomplish this feat. A colleague from the Academy told me Jindosh has made the heart alive and mechanical at the same time, able to whisper thoughts. This heart worked for about fifteen minutes before turning to ash.

“What a strange creation.”, raised Jessamine, pensive.

“Even if I lost contact with him, I know he lives in Karnaca and works for the Duke Abele. He just finished his first prototypes of mechanical soldiers, the Clockwork Soldiers.”

“I’ve heard about it.”, confirmed Corvo, still doubtful.

“With his knowledge and his skill, Jindosh is able to help Lady Emily: if he had succeeded in an artificial heart, he can certainly create mechanical legs for our heir.”

“Let me summarize. What you offer, Sokolov, is someone who will make an ablation of the fish tail and replace it with two functional metal legs? Someone with a lot of talent, regardless of his previous misdeeds because it could be useful?”

“I understand, Corvo, what you mean. But don’t forgot one thing: Jindosh has a great mind and an appetite for challenges. You don’t need to beg him.”

Jessamine suddenly rose.

“I truly thank you, Sokolov, though I’m sorry that is your last visit to Dunwall, we will miss you greatly. But you know our gates will always be open for you.”

“Will you— will you ask for Jindosh’s help, your Majesty?”

“There's no question about it: we talk about my daughter. My daughter can’t go home and she’s condemned to live like an animal somewhere in the South. Even if your former student had made some reprehensible acts in the past, he will be forgiven if he do a favor for the royal family.”, Jessamine’s gaze became severe. “I remember some hearsays about you, Sokolov, some stories about sacrifices for the good of the science, right? Yet, you saved my Empire.”

Inventor’s skin burned with shame.

“I’ll never thank you enough for all your exploits, Sokolov.”, the Empress’ voice softened, almost maternal. She came closer and put a hand on his shoulder. “You have saved so many lives. If Jindosh can save my daughter, I’ll be eternally grateful. Oh of course, I’ll insure myself against future amoral researches.”

After Sokolov’s departure, Jessamine informed Corvo of the letter she will send to Kirin Jindosh the same day: she will explain the situation and ask him to wait for the Royal Protector’s visit.

“If he refuses, you’ll arrest him immediately. But I trust Sokolov: if he judges his former pupil enough arrogant to accept a challenge, then you don’t need to be persuasive, just give him all the answers he needs. As for the Duke Abele, I’ll politely ask him to lend me his Inventor.”

“You'll make the effort to ask ‘politely’? I hope it won’t cost you too much.”

“I’ve always hated his sexist manners, but I always enjoy to give him orders he can’t ignore.”

Jessamine was still the Empress: she lifted her shoulders like a conqueror. Her appearance amused Corvo: full of thrill, he drew her closer and kissed her forehead.

“Corvo! Your beard’s itchy!”

“Then I’ll shave it tonight.”

“No. Have I not told you how you look handsome with it?”

“I think you already have, pretty much every day.”

She laughed and kissed him.

 

Smiles started to renew on the Empress’ lips, just like before. When Corvo got onto a boat for Karnaca, he was at peace: his absence will not be a hard ordeal for her love.

The bow was cleaving the waves, finding a way in the eternal sea. With his elbows on the gunwale, Corvo was wandering in thoughts about the past, sixteen months ago. His fingers touched the Outisider’s mark pricking his phalanxes. The tattoo burned his skin; however it had helped him to fight against Delilah, also blessed by the Outsider.

The witch had come one morning, surrounded by twenty or so women covered with petals and thorns. Delilah had presented herself as the Empress’ big sister, thus she was the true heir of the throne. That day had been a riot: the sorceresses had chased away the royal family and had slaughtered the loyal subjects. As for the others, the cowards had hidden away and had tried to dodge the witches’ charms. The next night, Corvo had been visited by the Outsider and had obtained his gift. Then the Royal Protector had rivalled with the usurper, ready to kill her. But Jessamine had begged him to spare Delilah as another way was foreseeable: trap the artist in one of her own paintings. Corvo has not been surprised by the Empress’ clemency; still he had known this impetus was covering a corrosive guilt.

And Delilah, with a last movement, had cursed Emily. The witch could have turned her into a rose bush, a cherry tree or even a lilac, but it would have meant the heir would have her roots put down in Delilah’s realm. The witch had wanted to _ban_ her. Emily’s legs had stuck together; blue, green and mauve scales had torn her epidermis; her ankles had broken, contorted with clicking noises; the young woman had collapsed with a painful cry.

“Dad! Help me!”, she tried to shout. But the powerless and petrified protector had understood when he had looked the portrait of the freshly trapped witch: Delilah had been laughing out loud, her traits twisted, mute yet dangerous.

When he remembered it, his heart clenched and the vise only untightened when Serkonos began to appear at the horizon. As the boat came close, Corvo was watching out for a hybrid shape. But Emily was not here.

He was asleep, exhausted with the heat, when the captain awoke him: they had arrived in Karnaca. As the sun was going down, the temperature was lowering. The air was still searing and the plaster on the building looked like it had been cooking during all the day. Corvo paid and thanked the sailor, then headed toward the Aventa District.

In the coach, the wind was lashing Corvo’s face, drying the first pearls of sweat off his forehead. He wanted to keep this distinguished look but he took his jacket off, then sponged down the back of his neck. He had forgotten when the twilight was over twenty five degrees.

The wagon stopped in front of a portal of wrought iron, near two guards.

“Corvo Attano, Royal Protector. I have an appointment with Kirin Jindosh.”, said the visitor when he showed a letter marked by the imperial seal. The watchmen did not bother him and opened the gate. The vehicle ran at a quick pace on its rails, leading to the manor which was standing by the cliff, echoing the Shindaerey Peak. Curvy and elegant, the mansion had off-white facades absorbing the last rays of the sun, glowing with a heat. Corvo judged the place beautiful yet a bit too exuberant.

The interior confirmed this opinion: in the hall, enormous statues were overhanging guests, showing an unnecessary luxury. The decorator seemed to be fond of warm colors: the champagne wallpapers were mixed with caramel-colored woodworks, all lightened by gold lanterns. The welcoming surroundings were contrasting with heavy silence. Corvo ignored the audiograph and ventured to beyond the double door.

He jumped: a robot of a considerable size greeted him, its four swords hanging by its sides just like a mantis with its legs. The head looked like a bird's one, crafted in perfectly shine olive wood.

“ _You’re are very welcome, Royal Protector!_ ”

The voice was coming from loudspeakers and seemed shared with the machine. The skeleton twisted, the beak changed of direction and the soldier walked toward the end of the place.

“ _Follow the guide, Protector, it’ll lead you where I’m waiting for you._ ”

After another hallway, Corvo relished the cool lounge where he stepped on. A glass floor revealed an underground waterfall right below.

“There you are.”

Sokolov had spoken about a former student though Corvo was surprised when he saw someone younger than he had expected. Jindosh might have been around thirty-five and his elegant appearance gave him a feline look. In fact, everything about Jindosh recalled cats: his gray eyes owned the same mischievous shard and the way his lips curled was the smile of a haughty household tiger. The Inventor offered Corvo his hand; in a surprising way, Corvo’s strength did not make Jindosh yield for he was also energetic. He invited the guest in a plain smoking room and offered Corvo cigars and whiskey. As for him, Jindosh contented himself with a cigarette.

Corvo remembered very well Sokolov’s warnings, but either the Duke had managed to muzzle this whimsical mind, or Jindosh was a very courteous monster.

“I must say I was looking forward our meeting, Royal Protector: I was greatly intrigued by our Empress’ request.”

“So are you interested?”

“Absolutely. Moreover, the missive’s tone didn’t let me any choice, I guess my interest is a bargain. First of all, there is just a little formality as you know I work for the—”

“The Duke Abele already knows you’ll serve our Empress from now until your work done. You don’t have to take care of him.”

“That’s perfect. Now, we can talk about the heir as I’m quite skeptical. What does the Empress mean by _turned into a mermaid_?”

“This isn’t an expression, Jindosh, Emily Kaldwin was turned into a mermaid.”

The scientist could not hide his surprise: as anyone else in the Empire, he had heard, among the society conversations, some rumors about Emily Kaldwin shut in Dunwall Tower, way more disfigured than her own mother, maybe mortally injured. Some even dared to say Jessamine’s daughter was dead and her funerals were a secret.

“A mermaid? Since when?”

“Since Delilah Copperspoon’s coup. We don’t know the spell that was used for this vengeance, but anyway, the heir is hiding somewhere in the sea right now: she has no longer legs, instead a tail of a fish.”

“Do you know exactly where she is?”

“Around Serkonos, near Cullero more precisely but well, she’s certainly explored the isle a few times already.”

“Dunwall’s ports were too risky I guess, but why didn’t you keep her? You could have built an aquarium.”

The word did not please Corvo but Jindosh was right with his exactness.

“The Empress thought about it but we didn’t want the heir to become a freak. It has been sixteen months and a very few people know the truth about Lady Emily: she knows how to hide and in the meanwhile, we’re trying to find a solution. And you are our last trump card.”

“How did you come to think about me?”

Jindosh already knew the answer but he could not deny himself the pleasure to hear it.

“Anton Sokolov told about you. He thinks you’re brilliant and _daring_ enough to succeed.”

The Inventor’s smile was not ambiguous: the former student had exceeded his teacher once again. As the professor had failed, the apprentice had to prove his talent.

“You have to know I’ve never worked about something we only find in fairytales.”

“Failure isn’t bad, Jindosh, but be careful: Emily Kaldwin isn’t a guinea pig and her death will lead to your conviction. I hope you know that.”

“You must suspect that the Duke Abele was a helpful financial assistance.”, remarked Jindosh, eluding the threat while he stubbed out his cigarette. “The Empress won’t think I’m too greedy as I always work with the finest equipment? Well, nothing is too beautiful for her daughter, isn’t it?”

“You’ll have everything you need.”

“Wonderful. The best is for my old professor to send me all his research, so I could save up some time and not start over. Then, I’ll keep you informed about every progress.”

“It sounds good.”

“So this is our deal, Royal Protector.”

 

Two weeks had been needed to modify the Clockwork Mansion’s laboraty: if Jindosh was first amused by the aquarium, it had become a necessity to keep Emily. He pursued some studies with Sokolov’s ones but quickly came to an end: Emily’s situation was genuinely remarkable. Paltry specifications stated the tail was around the same height than the former legs. Moveover, the mermaid has not webbed hands. Jindosh would complete the account. He had tried to gather more knowledge about human anatomy and fish’s one: and since the first simply sail, the second could not leave the waters. An ocean separates the two species.

Still, pride brushed off even the slightest doubt. Kirin Jindosh observed one of his Clockwork Soldiers: these machines were the pen which had written his name in history, but if he cured Emily Kaldwin, this action will be another kudos. Robots already existed when mermaids were only chimeras. Uncatchable chimeras and Jindosh was thinking about a way to find the Empress’ daughter. If Corvo was right Emily was swimming near Cullero. On his side, the Royal Protector hired a few guards with sea legs and provided with the secret meaning so they could help Jindosh. Emily’s safety was not essential, it was a compulsory condition.

If the heir could have heard her father, she would have snorted: Emily saw herself as clever enough to avoid dangers, fleeing from gazes. Many sailors had glimpsed her swift body, of course, but they were so superstitious they thought it was a supernatural creature or a hallucination provoked by the last drink. They never have imagined it has been Emily Kaldwin as a mermaid.

The guards chosen by Corvo had started to make inquiries in some bars but a few sailors were willing to speak, only quote the hearsays. If bone charms were banned by the Abbey, surely the fantasy about a fish-woman would be a heresy too.

 

“Esteban! The fat whale! The fat whale!”

“What again?”

“I kept an apricot tartlet for later and it pinched it! My tartlet!”

“Whale don’t eat tartlets, it gives them runs, you didn't know?”

Pablo belied and wailed louder and louder while Esteban did not listen anymore. Their boat was slowly going back to the port but the sailor’s bawling did not soothe.

“What a thief! Can’t believe it! Can’t believe a whale can pinch that much!”

His outraged complaints caught a guard's attention.

“What’s going here? You better be a victim to have the right to bellow so much in the evening!”

“A victim! Yes! Yes I am! A victim of a thief!”

“A robbery, then? Where? When?”

“You can’t do much about it: it was on sea and you weren’t there. A whale pinched me all the time!”

The guard looked at the quiet one, or rather the tired one, for an explanation.

“Pablo thinks a whale stole his things.”

“Why a whale? Aren’t you the one who confiscates his goods?”

“Excuse you?!”

“It’s a whale, sir: it steals my foods among other things and is off with it. I know it swims and every time it pinched a thing, I hear a huge _splash_! It must be a fat thing, not just a bass or an eel.”

The guard was not someone virtuous and his patience was quickly lost. The exchange ended with some hits to scare the madman and his partner. “And stay low or I’ll come and I’ll kill your fucking whale!”, warned the guard, so the legend of Pablo’s whale was created. This joke jumped from a street to another, amusing groups of friends: the picture of a whale with shoes at its fins and an apricot tartlet between its teeth was truly comical. Still these surrealist fables collided with some protests: Pablo and Esteban were not the only ones robbed as many disappearances were disturbing boats’ inventories. These conversations came to in the ears of the guards engaged by Corvo. The four of them looked at each other: some objects had simply fallen, for sure, but it was a lot of food and it was certainly a hint about the area we needed to focus on.

After they had informed Jindosh about it, they welcomed the Grand Inventor’s exceptional presence on their boat. Yet they looked unfavorably on the machine which was following Jindosh like a steel guard dog. A dog with the head of a bird.

“Don’t mind my creation: it’s nothing but a worker for now.”

To the machine’s shoulders were fixed two hooks which were supporting a cylinder of glass, large enough to contain an adult man. Soon it will be filled with water and when Emily will be spotted, the mermaid will be placed in the cage.

Jindosh had adjusted the machine so it will detect a hybrid body between the woman and the fish, still, without specimen for a test, the function was not really reliable. The guards told the Inventor what they had heard: as a creature pilfered food on the decks, so they had placed a basket full of fruits near the edge. They hoped the mermaid was the true culprit and the lure will work on her.

“A good initiative”, conceded Jindosh.

And the tactic was proven as effective at dusk.

 

Emily has not seen her favorite fish men since a while: their last argument had made her laugh to tears but now, she felt a bit ashamed. What if they had changed their place? What if their quarrel had incurred the wrath of a touchy guard? She promised herself to leave them alone for a long time. After all, other boats were pretty careless and she had always managed to eat until now.

A new boat had dropped anchor. Despite its size, she saw nobody on the deck. When the sun had finished its fall, when the wood of the hull had turned black, Emily grabbed one of the ropes and climbed. Before her eyes there was a basket full of fruits, she just had to stretch her arm, her fingers and she could reach the edge to make it tip over. The creature put her weight on the rope, spanned her arm and

“ _This playback indicates the machine has detected a hybrid creature._ ”

Emily jumped and saw a tall skeleton made of metal running toward her. She dropped the cord and let herself fall in the sea, blinded by fear. She swam under the hull, her favorite shelter, and tried to distinguish the noises above but the waves hitting on the wood made the only sound around. A brief moment and she took to decision to swim to the surface, slowly, so she could take a breath and flee away.

Her nose was out when a net flattened on her, whipping her face. She did instinctively struggle with all her strength, just like a fly in a spider web. Her body left the waters, lifted by the trap. A freezing shiver wrapped her: her teeth began to chatter, but she was not sure if it was of fear or for the cold. Her fingers tried to remove the black hair on her face while she was unable to see the tube.

“We caught her! We caught her!”

The creature felt she was trapped in the cylinder. Emily raised her head to take a breath but there was no surface: a lid blocked this prison full of water and she will soon need some air.

The Clockwork was lighting the scene with its beacons, revealing an outstanding sight. The men were facing a mermaid, a _true_ mermaid. The tail was waving, striking the glass while her hands tried to push the lid. Jindosh was fascinated: the link between the human part and the fish part was perfect. Some scales were above the waist, separated from the matching ones, but below, there were plentiful, shining like coins, stopping at the border of a big transparent fin.

But the mermaid was too turbulent. The beacons lighted her throat and her jaw. Jindosh noticed something then: Emily had no gills. She could not breathe under the water.

“Remove the lid!”

The guards were looking at the Inventor, stunned. In a meanwhile, Emily felt like her heart was ready to explode. As he lost his patience, Jindosh ordered the soldier to pierce the up of the cylinder: a crack freed some water and the captive could breathe again.

This mermaid had no webbed hands nor gills: Emily was more an amphibian creature than an aquatic one.

“She needs air: if she’s totally submerged, she’ll die.”

With the glass fissured, the cylinder could break any time: it was better to hurry to the port.

Emily was observing the men: four of them were wearing the guard uniform when the last one, if his clothes were of high quality, did not look like a noble. Maybe just a bit pretentious and eccentric. She knew no one and was wondering why she has been catpured: to help her? Study her? Punish her? Her arms wrapped around her bare breast and she curled up, waiting.

The machine lifted the cage and the mermaid was hitched to its back.

“All my apologies, Lady Kaldwin, for this approach but your mother, our Empress, had asked me to retrieve you. I’m Kirin Jindosh.”

The heir was sceptic. Very sceptic. She did not who was this Jindosh and how he was in contact with her mother, but as she watched the machine following the man, she came to the conclusion that Jindosh was its creator. The Inventor assured to the guards they will not be needed from now, back to the port, when he put all his trust in his soldier.

“You will excuse this measure, Lady Kaldwin”, and before Emily could understand, a cover was thrown on the cylinder.

She was rocked by the machine’s gait. An incomplete fish on the back of a bird made of metal : the picture was peculiar enough. Under the sound of the gearwheels, she could hear people speaking away, cats yowling, birds flying away. Even if her feet, or what was left of them, could not touch the cobblestones, she somehow felt wholy human again. Suddenly the machine stopped. Still the mermaid sensed movements: a coach took over. The blanket was taken off and Jindosh put a piece of cloth in the crack to prevent the water to flow.

Despite the night, Emily devoured the landscape: the light did not tower over her, it was her governing it. The buildings were tiny cubes and not slumped giants on the beach anymore. She has totally forgotten this view and avidly watched it despite the wagon’s speed. Sparks sprang in the shadow of the car and she guessed Jindosh just light up a cigarette: she did not share this friendly gesture for so long she wanted to stretch her hand and swallow some puffs. But she has to wait before she could smoke again.

The coach arrived at the destination and Emily admired the mansion. Banned for so many months, she was almost amazed when she saw doors, windows, paintings and carpets. But the most incredible were the machines: there were others in the manor. These robots, these moving rooms. It seemed Jindosh was an uncommon inventor.

“I’ll take you to my laboratory; you won’t stay in this cage any longer. The mansion is already perfectly protected, my laboratory is better: you don’t need to hide anymore.”

Since she was in the cylinder, Emily had kept her arms around her chest: a very feminine prudishness, noticed Jindosh, proving the young woman was still human is her manners and did not go over the animal side.

In the observatory, converted into a laboratory, a pool occupied a lot of space, taking two levels. Filters and other mechanical accessories made it look like a scientist bathtub. The bird poured the tube and Emily was thrown in her new bath, still shocked. She quickly came to the surface and enjoyed the air less confined than in her prison.

Jindosh brought a seat closer. The morning would come in a few hours but apparently, sleep was not his priority.

“At last! No glass, no lid, we can talk. Can you talk, Lady Kalwin?”

“Yes.”, Emily closed her mouth immediately. She sounded so grave. So hollow. Her voice slept in the deep of her throat for many weeks, it was reluctant to wake up.

“Apparently, the waters of Dunwall were too cold. Does this one suit you?”

She nodded. Emily rubbed her trachea and heated her vocal cords.

“I have lost the habit of talking.”

Jindosh gave her a glass of water she sipped slowly.

“I don’t sleep floating on water.”

“Excuse me?”

“Outside, when I was tired, I could find an isolated beach and I could sleep on it. I can’t breathe under water. Here, I’ve no support.”

Indeed Jindosh did not think about this detail, convinced Emily was like any other fish and could sleep underwater. He placed a table against the aquarium’s rim.

“It’s better than nothing.”, observed Emily. “Even if the wood will be too hard.”

“I’ll find something, Lady Kaldwin.”

The scientist never had a royal subject on his table, and tail of fish or not, Emily Kaldwin was the heir of the throne, so he preferred to apply the good manners. The future Empress will remember his devotion. He explained the situation: the empress’ letter, Corvo’s visit and Sokolov’s researches.

“Did you made them?”, asked the young woman, pointing on a Clockwork soldier.

“From the blueprint to the manufacture. The smallest cog was made in this place. As I’m not a wizard, I can’t cancel the spell, but I can build legs.”

“I don’t want legs like these!”

“Of course not: it’ll look like human legs. Judging by your coloring, I would opt for cherry tree wood or apple tree wood. The joints will be made of steel, I’ll explain you how to take care of it.”

“And you’ll operate on me? Just like that?”

“You didn’t become a mermaid like from the fairytales: your legs were replaced by the tail of a fish. It’s a dull anatomy problem.”

“A _dull_ problem?!”, Emily hit the surface with her tail, provoking a violent sound, just to remind Jindosh the ‘dull problem’.

“You didn’t understand, Lady Kaldwin. You’re quite touchy. Let me explain: if you would have gills, webbed hands and other traits, the modifications would have been more delicate. But as I can see, the problem is limited to your legs and the task will be easier.”

“When do you plan to remove my— what had been transformed?”

“I need more data first, you’ll get used to this idea. For now, I let you rest awhile. I’ll write to your mother, do you need anything?”

“Some clothes. My shirt has worn out and I didn’t really need it, but now—”

Jindosh sacrificed two pillows and a blanket, leaving it on the table. Emily thought she could felt an ancient joy, the one when one can sleep on cotton, but the sand soaked the water better. She observed Jindosh across the office, on the other side of the circular balcony. The letter was written for a long time and he has pursued with other tasks, maybe notes about her.

Even if she had accepted her situation, she was not against some help from someone who was able to remove this bloody tail. Emily wished she could run again, wished she could scamper on the ramparts and follow her father. Corvo has given her the taste for getaways and sword combat. She missed all these exercises.

Maybe the legs this Inventor would create will not suit her. She will leave a hybrid body for a mechanical one. Tiredness made her pessimist: she did not want to come back to the imperial court with cherry tree wood or whatever wood. She did not want to become Emily the First, the Mechanical. Without noticing, the light from the desk became a mist of honey sticking between her eyelashes. While she was imagining these futures, the young woman fell asleep.


	3. C H A P T E R 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with the universe, using Victorian details. Dishonored is a subtle mix between steampunk and dieselpunk and since the story is around 1850’s, I put some of our 1850’s but with moderation. I hope it won’t overrun the universe and you’ll still recognize it. It’s mostly about dialogues, psychology, etc.

The tips of his fingers started to wrinkle. Jindosh had reckoned the time he spent in water before the reaction. He remembered when he was a child and in his bath, fascinated, asking to his mother why his fingers looked like this. She has not been able to answer him. She has never been able to answer him.

In the long term, water became an enemy, eating epidermis, chilling bones. A human body could not withstand with the salty and wet embraces of sea. Quite observer, the scientist had noticed Emily’s undamaged skin. Salt stars had formed on her shoulders, her hair was a mess and she was carrying an iodic smell. Otherwise, her skin was undamaged. Emily had not spent all her time in the waters: she has certainly taken refuge on dry land. The life of a wandering fish, far away from the comfortable rooms in Dunwall. At this thought, Jindosh burst into laughter, his voice echoed on the tiles of the bathroom. The heiress of the throne had a fish tail and she was right now in his manor as a subject. No one else could live through!

The back of his neck was against the edge of the bathtub, Jindosh glanced toward the door of his laboratory. He had not seen his ‘patient’ since she had fell asleep. Right before her sleep, Emily was sheepish and lost, he hoped she would be more responsive once awake. Mermaid could be a fascinating subject; still, if this one had the cleverness of a mollusk, the scientist would lose his interest.

Jindosh stood up and rinsed the soap. As the water slid down to the bathtub drain, a ringing sound came from his room. A ringing sound that the inventor knew and even appreciated a lot, but today he did not want to pay attention.

“Eight o’clock.” He observed, checking the watch next to the tap. “Burglars get up later and later.”

The clockwork soldiers would take care of the intruder without difficulty, Jindosh was certain of it when he took a first shirt, near a second he planned to bring to Emily. Like every morning, he meticulously cared for his appearance, brushing his hair and mustache, adjusting every piece of clothing. Empress in his house or not, it was a routine, a ritual he performed. His hands often touched wood and metal plates, and yet no residue was forgotten under his fingernails. Likewise, none of his shirts could attest to the blood that sometimes flowed into the laboratory's anatomy section.

Emily was totally unaware of what could happen under the aquarium in which she was bathing. She saw only the two upper floors of the laboratory, observing Sokolov’s self-portrait, the many books and forgotten papers on the floor. From the edge of the aquarium, the new rooster of this strange bird of the waves, Emily could not quench all her curiosity: she had understood that Jindosh was an eccentric character, but she wasn’t aware of Sokolov’s warnings.

The mermaid slid down to the floor, leaning on what were once her knees, advancing to the railing before leaning on it. Beneath it was a real rose window of glass, wood, and gears, where the projects intermingled as if to blur the deductions of the simple-minded. Instruments occupied the surfaces of the furniture; the notes on the floor had multiplied like mushrooms after the rain. Emily would have liked to come down from the balcony and go through what she could see only from afar. As a little girl, she had never seen Sokolov’s workplace, but she had imagined it that way.

A soldier was on patrol: its knees were moving up and down with a regular, quiet cadence. The gears murmured a soft hymn murmur, singing for the mechanical life. The more the creature observed these metal limbs, the less she wanted to have a pair of artificial legs.

The elevator announced the arrival of the owner, but the siren did not try to return to its basin.

“Good morning, Lady Kaldwin.” Jindosh became suddenly speechless when he saw her. “You— It looks like you’re standing on your knees?”

The fish tail actually formed a strangely right angle, as if the young woman had knelt.

“Good morning, Jindosh. Is it for me?” Emily pointed to the shirt and the inventor nodded.

The siren pulled the garment, a little too wide for her shoulders, but she was much more comfortable.

“Your position intrigues me a lot and I would like to check your joints. If I may?”

Jindosh sat down beside her. He had not yet touched this strange chimera and was almost afraid of breaking the illusion by putting his hands on it. The scales were wet, smooth. Under the touch, he guessed that they covered a firm muscle and bones rather than fishbones and stringy flesh. When his fingers slipped toward the fin, he felt like he was touching a stump: the bones were present, he was almost certain, but they were like knotted, agglomerated between them. Emily suppressed a thrill remembering the sound that her ankles had produced during her metamorphosis.

“Have you ever tried to stand up?”

“No. And I don’t think my fin will support my weight.”

“Let’s give it a try.”

He grabbed her under the arms and lifted her up. The fish tail completely left the ground and the mermaid was suspended. Emily and Jindosh were of a similar size, and for a few moments she found a semblance of humanity.

“Stand at the railing if you need.”

Emily followed the advice and her forearms trembled on the ramp, more with emotion than with effort. The many hours of swimming had drawn beautiful and strong shoulders. She was tired of measuring just one meter: since her metamorphosis, she had the impression of being a little girl again who had to climb everywhere. But for now, she found all her height.

As soon as the tip of her tail touched the ground, the siren knew she would not be able to stand up.

“I can’t do it. Something is wrong, as if— as if my feet were broken and I could not stand on it.”

The scales covered the skin, but Jindosh guessed the curves from the past: the dimples of the lower back, the hollows of the abdomen, the silhouette of the hips. Everything was there: everything still existed but trapped in a sheath of scales. The scientist was convinced that if he cut this tail lengthwise, he would open a coffin of flesh where human relics would be preserved. Unfortunately he could not sacrifice this subject just for the joy of confirming his theory.

On the floor below, Jindosh had set up a table covered with a white sheet in front of a silvergraph: his creation, which immortalized the images, would allow him to fix Emily’s body on silver paper just like a collector could pin a butterfly in a frame. He took his subject to the support and asked her first to flatten her hands under the lens.

“But my hands are perfectly normal.”

“And that’s why I want to mention it. Don’t move, it takes about ten minutes for the machine to capture the image and I don’t want to spoil my equipment.”

Emily struggled to hold back a sigh, though she did not hesitate to roll her eyes. While the silvergraph was doing the memorization, Jindosh wrote some notes. The mermaid was trying to follow the mechanic soldier’s round, which, true to his status as an automaton, continued to advance.

“Do you ever eat, Jindosh?” Emily asked as soon as the machine left her field of vision.

“Of course I do.”

“I wondered if you were also an automaton. I guess you don’t really have time to take care of the stoves. What will your cook say when he sees that he has to serve eel jelly to a fish woman?” The tone was sweetly mocking: if Emily was going to remind her royal rank even in this mansion far from Dunwall, she had ceased to be a little nuisance a long time ago.

“There is no cook. I have no staff since I managed to assign various tasks to my machines. And those in the kitchen never start before nine o’clock.”

“A dish cooked by an automaton, what a chance to try this.”

“You can count yourself lucky, Lady Kaldwin, that my creations will never talk about your case outside while an employee would certainly lead us into endless blackmail. Ah, the take is over. Lie on your back.”

Emily obeyed and Jindosh pulled back the silvergraph to have a wider frame.

“I need to be able to see your size, remove your shirt a bit. Perfect. It’s quite curious, these scales scattered on your stomach.”

“Maybe that witch wanted to turn me into salmon and didn’t have the time.”

But Jindosh did not answer: Emily heard he murmured thoughts to himself. Hands crossed under her breast, she waited for the end of this interminable monologue before losing patience and cutting it:

“Since you have no staff, do you live alone?”

“Lady Kaldwin, it’s a wrong time for mundane conversations, and the pictures will be blurry if you move your jaw.”

“I just want to know, especially since I’m going to stay here for a while. And my face doesn’t matter much on your silvergraphs, Jindosh.”

“Lay on the side.”

Once more, the creature complied but she leaned on one elbow and stared at him, determined to know more about her host, determined to know the man who would _operate_ her. If she could trust him, even a bit, Emily would be able to apprehend this ordeal with more serenity.

“I live alone, although I often receive guests, but rest assured: they are never allowed to pass the reception rooms. What’s private remains private.”

“So I have the honor to be in your laboratory your guests have never had the chance to observe?”

“You play badly comedy for a noble. And I didn’t know that sarcasm was fashionable at the Dunwall court.”

“It’s fashionable in the seas of Serkonos. But I assure you that I’m truly honored.”

“Don’t be too flattered, Lady Kaldwin: your case is rather exceptional, I have never received a woman fish or lizard man or whatever.”

“The fact that I’m a mermaid impresses you more than my title of heir to the throne, obviously.”

The take was over; now she had to stand on her stomach. The poses were less tiring than those of the painting sessions. The future empress was not particularly narcissistic, she was less coy then her mother and instead shared the casual side of her father, contenting herself with the minimum. She remembered those days when artists came to immortalize her portrait: her chambermaids tied her hair in all directions, spread makeup on her lips and her eyelids and the woman had the sensation of suffocating. Today, after spending sixteen months almost in the wild state, she would have liked her servants to pamper her a little.

“Did you spend all your time in the water?” The siren jumped when the question drew her from her thoughts.

“No. It would be like walking without stopping. When I wanted to rest, I found hidden places like coves or caves. It’s lucky that Serkonos is a mountainous island.”

“Have you ever had animal instinct? No memory loss?”

“I often dreamed about a feast of plankton.” Jindosh looked at her surprised but she quickly went on with a straightforward smile. “I’m joking. No, I remained perfectly human with my memories, my tastes and— my emotions.”

There had been starless nights where Emily covered her face with her hands and crying a lot, hitting her fishtail against the walls of a cave to hurt that cursed part of her body. The idea of suicide had never touched her, but the urge to cut that tail with a penknife had haunted her for weeks.

“I am and remain Emily Kaldwin.”

Jindosh started to answer when a sound rang out from the office. Emily had heard this ring before, before the inventor arrived, but she did not understand what it was meaning.

“Is it nine o’clock?”

“No. This ring doesn’t announce the action of the machines in the kitchen.” It announced the advance of _other_ machines. The ones which put to death and conclude a fight. The intruder had joined the list of the braves dead in this mansion.

“Excuse me for a moment, Lady Kaldwin.”

“Do I have to wait for you here?” Jindosh eluded the question and left her in the laboratory. Emily stared at the silvergraph: the take was finished. Even the metal guard dog ignored her, still continuing its automatic walk. This entire manor already followed a precise rhythm and there was no place for a new gear.

A huge stain of blood had bloomed in the middle of the room, overflowing on a luxurious carpet ready to be thrown. Above the corpse, a Clockwork Soldier was waiting. One of its four blades had become garnet: the shine of the metal was drowned by the syrupy liquid. The thief had tried to sneak between the legs of the mechanical bird and one of the cutting wings had sliced him in half.

A strange machine had already begun to work close to the body: possessing six legs, the belly of this steel ant sheltered brushes and towels connected to different bottles of products. It was not a worker ant, rather a housekeeper ant capable of detecting blood and washing as well as a maid.

The soldier did not react and was still waiting: the program to move the intruder once eliminated was not yet fully developed. Jindosh sighed and clapped his hands.

“Soldier, get rid of the body.”

The automaton leaned forward and the blades retrieved the divided parts, freeing room for its fellow to perform its duty. A piece of intestine slipped from the chest with a wet sound, drawing the inventor’s attention. Jindosh stopped the machine.

“Soldier, bring the body to the laboratory, anatomy section.” His imagination was inspired by those legs separated from the rest of the body. An idea was born: the body was dead but Jindosh could try to reunite the two parts, to gather them together. If he succeeds, he might be able to start the experiment again on a living, female subject while keeping his guinea pig alive. And if success was repeated, Jindosh would know how to replace Emily’s fishtail with _real_ legs. An operation much more risky than mechanical prostheses. But the brilliant mind had never resisted complex challenges.

The mermaid was sitting at the edge of the table. The minutes passed as she inspected the surroundings: the workshop was a mix of luxury and practice. Olive wood blocks filled the air and the woodwork had left here and there a thin veil of dust, trying to compete with the cleanliness that reigned in the room.

“You spend all your time working here. Don’t you ever eat?” Emily asked to the automaton. Then the elevator announced the return of the inventor who apologized to her, accompanied by a wheelchair:

“You must be starving, Lady Kaldwin, we will postpone the rest of the study for later. Come.”

The lower laboratory had several wheelchairs to transport the bodies: for once, one of them would serve a living. Jindosh lifted the creature off the table and put it in the chair.

“A convenient way of transportation.” Emily observed, relieved not to be carried away like a bundle anymore.

“It’s still quite limited.”

“You mean stairs?”

“That and the mechanisms of the house. I doubt you could understand anything.”

Emily was astound, but she held her tongue. Accustomed to exploring everything from the deepest cellars to the highest roofs, the Dunwall Tower had no secrets for the heiress. If she did not intend to violate the intimacy of the Grand Inventor, he had just challenged her unintentionally. Some habits were stubborn and Emily was eager to repeat her escapades to contradict her host.

Emily could see the manor by day: under the rays of the sun of Karnaca, the sensation of heat was confirmed. With the wheelchair, they were forced to take a longer path and the guest discovered a new part of the Clockwork Mansion, like the strange carousel in Jindosh’s private apartments. Emily understood better why the inventor had belittled her about the understanding of the functioning of the manor, which said, she did not doubt that she would learn very quickly to handle these levers.

As they descended, the young woman felt a fresh draft of damp air. In addition to hearing the sound of a waterfall very close. She wondered what kind of house Jindosh lived in.

“You are very quiet. My home leaves you speechless?”

“Hunger leaves me speechless.”

She was not a mermaid that bit so easily to fish for compliments.

“My Clockwork Soldiers are more impressive, I grant you. Don’t deny, I saw your amazement yesterday and I will add that you had really lost your voice.”

“And I saw yours amazement when you noticed my fish tail.”

Jindosh bit the inside of his cheek while refusing to admit defeat by Emily’s repartee.

“Your problem is losing its appeal in fact: I truly think your legs are still there, altered but present.”

“Great news in this case, I had planned a marathon after lunch time.”

“Be patient, Lady Kaldwin, soon you can run as before. Your situation has a new attraction for me—”

The siren had not heard this last sentence barely whispered. The waterfall covered the sounds and brought a breath of fresh air into this mountain hollow. The rays of the water were reflected on the walls carved into the stone and Emily was struck by this contrast of temperature and light. Here, in the bowels of the stone, everything was in green and anthracite tones.

Jindosh pushed the wheelchair into the middle of the kitchen. An iron cube was heating, probably replacing a traditional oven, except that above a line of watches indicated the temperature, time and other measures that Emily did not manage to guess. Further, a large jar contained boiling water ready to be mixed with tea or coffee. The siren also noted the presence of a scarab-shaped creation that had on its shell a hot plate, serving as a stove. The machines were busy, warming, stirring uninterrupted like stoical servants, imperturbable even in front of the master of the house.

Emily moved her seat and looked at the dishes that were getting ready: ones were sweet and others were salty.

“Take whatever you want” Jindosh offered, pouring a cup of coffee for himself.

“I let you choose first, you’re the host after all.”

“I’ll settle for my coffee.”

And the man turned away.

“You won’t stay?”

“I’ve an experience that can’t wait. But for your safety, stay in this part for I’ve no desire to write to the Empress to explain that her daughter has been reduced to dust by an arc pylon.”

Or that the heiress was crushed between two walls or was shot at by an aggressive soldier. Emily did not want it neither. She grabbed a cup of black tea and watched Jindosh comes back to the elevator. He would not share the secret: his experience would remain a mystery for the moment. A strange, bitter feeling took hold of her. Annoyed, Emily thought herself as a patient, someone to help, but the Inventor certainly considered her a mere laboratory sample, a subject of experience.

She swallowed the brew while looking at the machines. They also did not notice her. The young woman took a grape and sent it to the top of the jar. The fruit bounced and disappeared behind an interior window. The lady sighed: the staff at Dunwall Tower was so serious that it was boring, but at least they reacted when she joked.

A discreet splash sounded. Intrigued, the mermaid rolled her chair out of the kitchen, arriving on an interior balcony. Just below, an underground waterfall ran into a natural pond. The noise was amplified and droplets danced frenziedly like insects on a summer day. Emily nibbled the grapes and approached the edge, a smile on her lips.

The water was very tempting.

 

“You are much more beautiful like that.”

The hand of the witch finished to equalize the black locks on a delicate brown neck. The color was so hot that she could not resist to kiss it. Billie Lurk jumped, surprised, and ran her fingers through her hair: they were as fluid as the breeze now.

“Now, I can tell you: I hated that bob cut that you had, it hardened your face.”

“My face _is_ hard, Claudia.”

Billie looked up at the woman. Towards this truly beautiful woman.

She was not fooled: Claudia’s compliments were only small daily gifts, bouquets of words placed in the hollow of her ear. But when Billie told Claudia how beautiful she was, it was a genuine truth. Her hair was spun fire, marrying different shades of ginger. And from her jaw to her hips, Claudia’s body was a white sky where constellations had frozen in hot spots. All Billie liked.

Black eyes scanned her throat, the knotted bun, in search of what she used to devour. But Claudia had changed. Claudia had become a witch, venerating Delilah Copperspoon and obeying Breanna Ashworth. This idolatry had brought to her complexion a strange brilliancy reminiscent of the light of the swamps. The freckles had become dull, drowned in this glaucous green. As for her hair, the fire had lost its heat.

“Would you fancy hair like Delilah?”

Billie stood up, her silence insinuating that she refused to imitate Delilah. She did not share the same fascination with the thorn witch as her beloved. From now on, she even felt a certain jealousy. Since Clara and Billie had joined the witches of Karnaca, the redhead was styled in the same way as Breanna and far from being mocked; she was even adulated for this imitation.

With her forehead against the window, Billie watched the night fall on the city: the sky was glowing and adorned with some heavenly diamonds, while the channel underneath was ugly, losing its reflections and drowning in the shadows. Billie would have liked to jump in and swim to the sea. She had always dreamed of boats, trips, bathing: she wanted to be captain of the oceans, captain of her life.

But she was mistress of nothing.

She was in this flowered apartment in Cyria Gardens, in this miniature forest where the stalks tangled like amorous bodies. She was with Claudia, obsessed with Delilah and her powers, and Billie was forced to approve this toxic passion. She wondered what life would have been like if this talented assassin had not died in front of her. A little urchin in the shadows, she had seen this powerful man fight almost supernaturally. And yet a guard had managed to do the unimaginable: his bullet had pierced the assassin’s skull, spreading his brains on the cobblestones of the street.

Billie was haunted by this memory. She had seen several people lose their lives, her late Deirdre for example, but this assassin’s fall tormented her. This death gave her the sensation of an opportunity forever missed. But why? What would her life have looked like if he had survived and if she had gone to talk to him? Would the face of the world have been changed? She would never know it.

“I can’t wait for tomorrow, when Breanna sends our sisters to Dunwall to release Delilah.”

Our _sisters_? Billie clenched her fists: though she was an orphan, she refused to have these women devouring men for sisters.

“I wonder how the Royal Protector will be changed? In a little pig? No! Better: a big rat! And his wife— let’s see— A sardine? No, she could join her girl monster.”

Claudia finished stapling her stockings to her garter belt. They had spent the day in bed, breathing the scent of flowers above their heads, watching the sun dance with the shadows of the apartment, loving each other on the cotton sheets. Billie was no longer sure of the term, no longer sure of the love they shared. Five years ago, Claudia and Billie had shared the sweetest caresses, the hottest kisses, the most intimate conversations. But Claudia’s generous heart had fallen back since several months: it could not accommodate Billie, Breanna and Delilah at the same time. One of the three should soon make room and Billie knew she would be sacrificed.

“I would have loved to be here!”

“Where?”

“In Dunwall, when the heiress has been transformed!”

Billie sighed. Emily Kaldwin’s transformation was a subject that often came back to Claudia’s mouth.

“If you want to see mermaids, there’s plenty at the monster fair in the old quarter. We can go tomorrow if you want.”

“Those are fake, Billie.” The witch chuckled.

“Okay, these are fish grafted to poorly painted dolls. But the effect is striking, I assure you.”

“It’s not about seeing a mermaid, Billie. It’s about seeing the heiress turned into a siren! Humiliation and beauty united. This is typical of Delilah. She destroys something to make it even more beautiful.”

Billie did not share this view: the witch had rather disfigured the woman she loved.

Claudia wanted to integrate Breanna’s plans. She was only a young witch who had yet to prove herself, curbed by Billie who was more timorous. Her feelings for Billie were sincere and if they became sisters, the novice would be fulfilled. Yet Billie was hermetic to charms and spells, brushing against this world with timidity. Or with suspicion. The two women had already quarreled over this and Billie avoided being as frank as usual, no longer able to be the target of Claudia’s anger.

“I will ask to participate in the release of Delilah in Dunwall.”

“What? Breanna will never accept.”

“She noticed how motivated I was. She knows I’ll do anything for Delilah.”

“And become her favorite?” Billie had heard these murmurs in the trees of the Royal Conservatory. The witches claimed Delilah’s favors as opium addicts in search of the dragon to chase. Perched on the winding branches, they shared rumors and sought to eliminate those they considered unworthy of being loved. With their belly against the bark, they laughed and whispered, mocking the name of Billie Lurk, the one that would be abandoned by Claudia.

“We could be her favorites. Both. Come with me, Billie. Show Breanna that you’re ready to join her. That you’re ready to accept Delilah as our legitimate empress.”

Billie raised the window to let in a cool breeze. She no longer bore the scent of blistering petals, glistening pistils, and sharp spines. Her mouth swallowed the sea air, the one she preferred. Her tongue could almost smell the salt. Nevertheless, Billie was stuck in this botanical apartment and this thought made her sad.

She would not be captain of the oceans, nor captain of her life.

Claudia had risen and approached in silence. Her nails brushed Billie’s skin, drawing arabesques from her ear to her shoulder.

“You aren’t so modest, usually. I trust you, Billie. You’re worthy of being a grandiose witch. We’ll be formidable, beautiful and strong. No one’ll hurt us. We’ll be like those roses that embrace. We’ll be like those trees that resist the centuries.”

Like creepers, Claudia’s arms wrapped around her waist. Billie felt her chest against her back, her breath in the crook of her neck. Claudia was able to charm her, witch or not, she was able to seduce her with a few words, some contacts.

“Okay. If Breanna accepts, I’ll come with you to Dunwall.”

In her burst of joy, Claudia grabbed her face and kissed her. Their lips were like the mouths of two carnivorous plants.

 

With a dead organism, the experiment could not be a real success. However, Jindosh had identified enough essential points to have a solid knowledge base. The subject being male, he should start his study with a woman to master the case of Emily. He noted in a corner of mind that he should consult the funeral headings of the newspapers, perhaps even inquire at the asylum led by Amos Finch which was north of Karnaca.

The anatomy part had been cleaned and the remains of the body thrown out, releasing Jindosh and reminding him that his stomach was protesting, starving. It must have been around noon: time had passed and the inventor hoped that the siren had not ventured to dangerous places. His project was going so well, a tragic and hasty ending would be frustrating.

Unfortunately the kitchen was empty. The machines worked, indifferent to Jindosh’s concern. The wheelchair was no longer in the room: she was gone. He ventured to the balcony and saw at least the armchair near the railing, but no sign of the creature.

“Lady Kaldwin?”

Jindosh leaned over the rail and the mermaid was there. Emily was swimming under the waterfall.

When the mermaid entered the fresh water, she had spent long minutes floating on her back, watching the glass ceiling. These multiple superimposed skies had made her dizzy. Letting herself sink to the bottom, her body had grazed the drowned stones, looking for imaginary treasures but no chest had landed in this lake. Then she went to have fun under the waterfall: the water was cool and soft, slipping on her skin and swallowing the salt that was embedded in it, ridding her hair of sand, plating it on her face, blinding her.

Jindosh stepped over the fence, following the same path as the siren. The stones were steep in some places, but a natural staircase had formed, forming uneven and closely spaced steps.

“I told you to stay in the kitchen.” Jindosh observed, sitting on a rough step near the shirt that Emily had carefully folded before entering the water.

“I’m still alive. It’s not a dangerous place.”

They had to raise their voices to cover the sound of the eddies. Emily pulled away from the waterfall and, taking advantage of her wet smooth hair, twisted it into a bun, then the chimera approached the rim, leaning on the rock.

“I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman or a noble, but you seem to think that I’m a young lady in distress, isn’t it?’

“More as a spoiled. But the two figures can get close.”

“Few nobles and women would have survived in my situation, Jindosh. I spent sixteen months surviving in the sea, yet I managed to eat and escape all dangers. And by dangers, I mean the men, their harpoons, their nets, and the marine predators. If I were really the one you imagine, I would have been crunched by a shark since a long time.”

“Have you escaped a shark?”

“Six times. They were more attracted to the fish side than the human side.” She managed to snatch a smile from Jindosh.

“Sharks don’t digest humans.” The scholar said. “Most of the time, they spit out the limb they swallowed. But you would have had little chance to see your ‘legs’ again.”

“And there was another danger—” Emily hesitated to continue. She was not sure she could trust Jindosh: she would find no friendly shoulder with him, no protection. Certainly he would defend his unique sample as long as there was material to study, but it would not be out of compassion. He would not pity or support her. “I’m not sure, but from hearing conversations, rumors, I think witches are still lurking. Maybe to my research.”

“Witches serving Delilah?”

“Yes. Delilah was not alone when she came to Dunwall Tower. Many have been imprisoned but I doubt they were only twenty. They are certainly more.”

“I don’t see why they would be after you, Lady Kaldwin. Delilah wanted to ban you, and she did it. When you return home, you’ll most likely become a target of choice. But for now, you’re nothing.”

And when she becomes the heiress again, when she finds her world, Emily will have to be ready. The young woman refused to let her father be the only one to face the usurper’s followers: Emily, as future empress, would defend her family, her name and her inheritance.

“And don’t you worry about here, I remind you that my manor is well guarded. You have only seen my soldiers on patrol, but you should see them in battle.”

“They are formidable?”

“The word is weak.” Replied Jindosh, taking a cigarette out of his jacket.

“I have a little service to ask you, Jindosh.”

“I’m listening.”

With a small shy gesture, she pointed to the cigarette.

“I haven’t smoked for months. Would you agree to give me one?”

Jindosh snatched another and handed it to the naiad. She stuck the cigarette between her fingers, grilled the end with a lighter and set fire to the tobacco with a deep breath. The smoke curled in the back of her throat before escaping in volutes through her parted lips. It was a happiness she savored.

“Thank you.”

“Pleasure.”

With her hair wrapped around her neck, Jindosh saw her in a more human look. More civilized.

One hand holding her chin, the other holding her cigarette, Emily was watching the glass floor above their heads. Jindosh had his back against the smooth stone and watched the fish tail danced under the water. Emily’s movements were perfectly human: she was not waving; she was bending and relaxing her legs.

“Are you going to tell me about this experience that couldn’t wait?”

Narcissist, the scientist would have liked to fully explain his project, but he dreaded that Emily raises ethical barriers and refuses to cooperate. Although he did not need to explain the origin of the idea and how he practiced it. After another puff, he confessed his intention:

“I drew this night the first sketches for your mechanical legs. I remain convinced that the apple tree will be perfect, but an alternative has presented itself.”

“An alternative to apple tree? I assure you that the wood leaves me indifferent. It doesn’t matter whether it fits with my skin or not.”

“No, no, not an alternative to wood. An alternative to mechanical legs.”

Emily stared at him, gaping.

“What do you mean?”

“A leg transplant.”

“The idea is—”

 _Senseless_. She stared at him and waves of questions swept through her mind.

“But I— whose legs, first of all? And you aren’t a surgeon, you’re an inventor, a mechanic. Machines and a human body, it’s not the same thing!”

“You make a mistake: the body is a machine. Absolutely complex, yes, but a machine anyway. Some people give their bodies to science. With or without their consent by the way. If a woman between the ages of twenty and twenty-five years old, white, around six feet, dies, I could use her legs. Don’t look at me with that horrified look, of course I’ll check if the legs are in good shape.”

“The legs of a dead person?”

“Recently died, the legs must be fresh.”

Emily was not seduced by the idea of being half-mechanical, but having the half-body of another was no better. While she could not tame her animal part, accepting a foreign part, belonging to another human being, would be an ordeal she was not sure of taking up. Her palm slipped on her fish tail, a palm dreaming of touching a thigh, a knee. By finding a whole body, her runs would resume, her training too. She would be complete again.

“Where do you plan to find legs?”

“A hospital, a morgue, a prison. The places are not lacking.”

Emily crushed her cigarette in a nervous laugh.

“A prison? Choose a candidate without a tattoo: if the next Empress has daggers or skulls tattooed under the belt, I can’t imagine the rumors that will be invented.”

“As a heiress, you’re the one who launches the fashion in the salons, the trend would be original.”

“Do you think you can do this?”

“Your question is almost hurtful, Lady Kaldwin. I would not tell you if I thought the operation impossible.”

“I’m only asking you for one thing, then. I want the prisoner or the sick person to know that she will bequeathing her legs to someone. And I want her to agree.”

“To leave her legs to the heiress of the throne? Do you really think that the person will have the choice?”

“You will not tell her anything about my identity. Especially since no one knows what happened to me, my fishtail is a state secret.”

“I’ll try to obtain the agreement of your benefactor, Lady Kaldwin, if it’s the only condition for you to let me lead this experience, the price isn’t high.”

Jindosh voluntarily forgot to mention that subjects in asylums and prisons had few rights. The insane, anonymous prisoners and patients rarely knew the rest of a burial, knowing only the cold table of a laboratory or the dark cellars of forbidden cults. But Emily would not have to worry about it: only the survival of this operation was the essential point.

The inventor smiled as he turned away, letting Emily put on her shirt, ready to go with her for lunch.

 

Jessamine rolled on the mattress, caressed by the sheet, caressed by Corvo’s hands. He enveloped her in loving warmth, kissing her shoulder, her neck, her loose hair. Lying on her stomach, she savored those fingers that drew the line of her shoulder to the arch of her back, venturing on the curve of her bottom. Corvo felt all the muscles contract under his touch. He smiled when he heard Jessamine moaning: his fingers had arrived between the thighs, exerting a slight pressure to make her languish.

“Lie on your back.” He murmured, and his queen obeyed. Only dressed with shadows, in all her femininity, Jessamine still remained the Empress of her life, the one he always loved. By day he looked at her tenderly, happy whenever he could touch her, walk beside her. But by night, Corvo loved her with a burning love, allowed to let his desires direct his actions. He began to kiss Jessamine’s breasts, feeling his wife’s thighs grip his waist.

She touched Corvo’s shoulders: he was as strong as he was ten years ago. And she savored this strength: when they were alone, he could grab her, hold her in his arms like a passionate man, forgetting the titles and rules. Soon, she felt Corvo’s hair brush the inside of her thighs. After the kisses, the tongue came to snuggle between the two lips and Jessamine arched, a delighted look on the face, ready to melt.

A sound of broken glass echoed down the hall; breaking the embrace of the two lovers.

“What was that?”

Corvo pushed aside the blanket, grabbed a pair of pants, and rushed out of the room with his sword in his hand. There was no light in the hallway but the Dark Vision allowed the Royal Protector to scrutinize the place, and those beyond. Some feminine silhouettes were barely perceptible.

Four guards had joined Corvo.

“Lord Corvo, we heard some noise.”

“It came from there. Bertram, stay near the Empress’s room, we’ll see what is going on.”

Bertram nodded and, silently, the team moved on: there was no obstacle blocking them for the moment. But Corvo accelerated the pace when he understood: the silhouettes were trying to enter a secret room. The room where the prison of the usurper was held. He walked towards the women without explanation, followed by the guards.

“Take out the revolvers. Use them if intruders do not surrender.” Corvo advised, while he was only with his sword. He thought he was good enough to compete with witches. The silhouettes were perfectly drawn now and by sticking to the door that separated them, Corvo could hear the burglars.

“... you’re clumsy, Adela! Your mother fucked with a bear or what?”

“You can shut up: your unsightly voice will attract all the guard!”

“Enough!”

They whispered like angry snakes, spitting their venom. Corvo made a sign to one of the guards who opened the door and held on to the three women in the room. A lamp placed at their feet cast monstrous shadows on the walls, deformed by the hunting trophies, gluing on the royal portraits.

“Don’t move.”

The witches immediately raised their hands, stoic.

They were docile, strangely peaceful. Corvo feared that thorns would be sent to them in the face, he feared a surprise attack. Plus, their small number was suspicious: they were only three—

One of the guards then fell to the ground, the chest pierced by a peak that began to bloom, drinking from the blood of the dead to give life to some buds. Corvo looked at him with horror: the blow came from behind.

“We are returning the order, gentlemen: don’t move.”

A witch, her arm covered with lianas and pointed leaves, reached out to them, ready to kill again. Behind Corvo and the two living guards, Claudia giggled, excited like a child. She, Billie and Adela had intentionally made noise to attract their enemies in this small room. She grabbed Billie’s hand and, with a broad smile on her face, murmured:

“Delilah, here we come!”


	4. C H A P T E R 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /!\ /!\ /!\ THAT CHAPTER WASN'T BETA-READED. /!\ /!\ /!\  
> I'm a French native/speaker/writer, I always translate my fic myself then ask for a beta-reading. I wrote two more chapters in French and my beta-reader is a bit busy nowadays (as I should be but oh well, ahah, writing a fic instead of my thesis, I'll burn in Hell or whatever) and I never push the nice people who agreed to correct my mistakes.
> 
> As it has been two weeks since the last chapter, I give you the unbeta-readed (?) chapter 3, but the previous chapter has been beta-readed now!
> 
> So read at your own risk or wait a bit~ ♥  
> (I guess it's still better than reading the French version with google translate, ahah)

Billie had never seen so much luxury with her own eyes. The room was, however, a small smoking room that housed two armchairs and a coffee table. Paintings adorned the walls while the details of the blue wallpaper were already very rich. A wall mural, cut in amaranth, extended in a long line, representing a scene of aquatic life: wooden whales, fishes and octopuses were frozen between seaweed and shells. The work was so neat that the animals seemed alive, ready to move to the bottom of this purple sea.

Billie did not belong in this frame, nor did Claudia or Adela. The latter was holding a glass that was more valuable than all the meals she had eaten in her life. An abused teenage girl who had fled the orphanage, her porcelain face still bore a few scars and, when she opened her mouth, a gaping hole appeared in place of the canine that fell last year.

“Ready?”

Her arm was shaking. All three were novices, but it was Adela who felt the less confident. Billie glanced at Claudia: she was breathing with difficulty, her breasts crushed by her corset with every nervous and quick inspiration. Billie, meanwhile, felt the adrenaline mingle with ease with her blood: used to the fights, her veins already knew this particular heart rate.

“For Delilah”, murmured Claudia.

And the glass burst against the tiles.

The remains brushed their ankles and scratched the floor. The witches watched the debris shine under the flame of the lamp, waiting for the slightest sound. They heard only their breathing. Billie licked her lips and the three of them suddenly tensed: there was finally some agitation in the corridor.

“Damn! How you’re clumsy, Adela! Your mother fucked with a bear or what?”

“You can shut up: your unsightly voice will attract all the guard!”

“That’s enough!”

And the door opened on four armed men.

“Don’t move.”

Billie saw Blanche’s venomous shadow behind them and was not surprised when one of the guards collapsed, pierced by a plant cone. The witch laughed at them, returning the order. The spilled blood gave the novices confidence: Claudia was jubilant and Billie could admire the hole in Adela’s teeth.

The redhead released the hand of her love and seized an enemy to gag him. As for Billie, she approached the Royal Protector whom she had recognized. In spite of his age, his completely unveiled stature left no doubt: Corvo was a though opponent. That did not frighten Billie because she had already proven herself in combat, even against elite guards.

Anyway, it was only necessary to immobilize them.

Corvo felt a hand rest on his mouth as one arm held his neck. The witch in front of him paid no attention to the other guards: her poisonous green eyes pierced _him_. Her whole body quivered with hatred. Corvo was the one who had locked Delilah in the painting and Blanche would have liked to open his trachea.

“Well, well, Royal Protector, a little sound of glass and here you are, out of bed and barely dressed. We had planned to destroy the wall, I dare not imagine in which outfit you would have arrived then.”

The enchantress laughed ferociously. Corvo did not move his jaws: if the witches intended to destroy the wall, it was because they did not know how to open the trunk that contained Delilah’s painting. A chest that opened only when the mural was correctly handled: this padlock disguised as a decorative element was designed by Sokolov himself. A complex and neat work. The combination, difficult to memorize, had been reproduced on a bracelet where the order of algae and animals had been carved on ivory pearls. And this bracelet was near the bed of the Empress.

The guard Claudia was gaging screamed and his knees dropped. Billie had not seen what had happened: she thought at first that Claudia, in her enthusiasm, had hurt the man, not respecting the original plan. Blanche had exactly the same thought and gave her disciple a death stare.

Corvo took advantage of the moment of confusion to swing forward, taking Billie with him. The woman was propelled but managed to recover. She planted her nails in Corvo’s neck and landed on her lap, causing him to lose his balance for a short while. He managed to push her away with the handle of his sword. The one marked by the Outsider never demonstrated his gifts, but the thought of Jessamine confirmed that urgency was more important than discretion. Stunned, Billie felt the body of the man evaporate in her hands: Corvo had just teleported to the end of the corridor, escaping the witches.

Adela and Claudia were overwhelmed by the guards. The hostage of Claudia, who had simulated a pain to destabilize the assailants, struck the tip of the barrel of his revolver against the forehead of her jailer. As for the youngest apprentice, she had fallen after a trip.

Always quick to react, Billie took again her knife and began to attack the two adversaries like a furious cat: she wanted to recover Claudia and Adela, to save the woman she loved and this girl who seemed lost. The blade sank into the forearm of the first opponent, releasing the teenager who took the opportunity to flee. Then, the tip of the weapon aimed the eye of the second enemy, sliding on the cheekbone. Billie grabbed Claudia’s hand and dragged her into the race. They had fulfilled their part of the contract: to make diversion while the witches searched for the code of the safe. She had no regrets to let Blanche fend for herself.

In front of the door of the room, Bertram was on the ground strangled by ivy that seemed to act by itself, his face began to turn blue and his tongue protruded from his lips. Sitting in the bed, Jessamine had armed herself with the revolver she kept in her bedside table. Since the attack of Delilah, the Empress had become her own bodyguard, following Corvo’s training.

Three witches were there, trying to blend into the shadows of the night while apprehending the actions of their opponent. When Jessamine saw Corvo, she pointed the gun at him, called him in a loud voice and pulled the trigger. Quick, as if time was slower in his situation, Corvo’s arm rose and the sword struck the bullet. The marble of lead went through the temples of a first witch and stopped its race only when it got stuck at the bottom of the skull of a second, tearing the folds of the brain, burning her last thoughts.

The remaining sorcerer screamed and rushed at the Empress, her nails ready to burst her eyes. Corvo teleported to the enemy and grabbed her throat, squeezing her neck in the crook of his elbow. Despite the dim light, Jessamine could see the witch’s eyes bulging with rage. Then the eyelids became heavy and hid this gulf of hatred. Unceremoniously, Corvo threw the unconscious woman to the ground and took Jessamine in his arms. She responded to his embrace.

“I’m fine, Corvo. I’m fine.”

“I know. I just need to hold you against me.”

“The painting is—?”

“Still safe. But obviously, secrets never stay hidden long in Dunwall—”

The guards who had accompanied Corvo arrived, making sure that the Empress was safe. One was compressing the wound of his forearm with his hand, the other concealing his eye. They informed their superior that the intruders had fled. The news was bad but Corvo tried to relativize. First of all, the three women in the room were not witches, they were certainly novices, bait paid and, returning with failure, they would be removed from the projects or even eliminated. As for the witch who had killed one of their comrades, although she had fled too, Corvo was planning to have the one he knocked out talk to him to get some names. They would see each other again.

“Nice initiative, Weldon.” Corvo congratulated the guard who had had the brilliant idea of making a diversion. Corvo was sincere; otherwise the night would have been worse without the improvisation of his colleague. He carefully noted this act of bravery and, if the matter were to reach the editor of the newspaper, Corvo would ensure that the name of Weldon would not only occupy an unfortunate line in a column, and he would not forget the one who died in battle.

 

Jessamine thought the night very long: sleep was repulsed by the questions and worries that were lurking in her mind. Her insomnia was shared by Corvo, who slowly approached her. They were hidden under the sheets like two children who dreaded witches, seeking shelter in the arms of the fabric.

“You never told me why you refused me to kill Delilah.”

“I’ve a heart too tender.” She was trying to hide her embarrassment with a little humor. Yet even in the dark, Corvo knew he would have to dig deeper to know the truth. Except for the family bond that tied his wife to this horrible witch, he knew nothing.

‘There could be a fire in this room. A painting burns much faster than a body. Wood, canvas, products in painting—”

“No, Corvo. Please. You must know what I mean since you have a sister too.”

“Who has never sent mercenaries to kill me.”

Jessamine turned her back with a tired sigh. She did not resist when Corvo slid his hand between hers, leaning in those hot palms.

“Delilah’s your sister and she wants to take your place on the throne. I can understand that you refuse to have her executed, but you’re showing too much leniency for her.”

The Empress tightened her fingers on Corvo’s ones.

“Is there anything you would like to tell me?”

“When I was a child, I was cruel with Delilah.”

He did not press her with questions: if Jessamine agreed to open one of the corners of this tender heart, he would let the wind of words push the door for him.

“It’s quite stupid— Delilah and I played very often together without disturbing anyone. Until the day I wanted to play with crystal figurines that belonged to my grandmother. Delilah was less enthusiastic but she agreed to take part: I had chosen a beautiful ship and she had taken an octopus. We imagined that the octopus wanted to get on board.” Jessamine explained nostalgically. She remembered how the rays had illuminated these transparent forms. Delilah and she had been fascinated by the rainbows dancing on the carpet that afternoon. “Then I decided that the octopus couldn’t be part of the crew, I snatched the figurine from her hands and I knocked the boat down on it. Everything broke with a horrible noise and a servant entered. I didn’t think: I knew they were valuables and I was so scared. I cowardly accused Delilah. Nobody put my word in doubt even if I cut my thumb a little. I didn’t see Delilah again, but I knew that the punishment had been severe.”

“And that’s why you feel responsible?”

“That’s silly, I know. But I was a liar and this memory still hurts me, Corvo. We always raised Emily to be honest and brave, if she knew that her own mother had been an odious little—

“Jessamine, all the kids do bad things.”

“There’s a difference between stealing an apple before the meal and accusing someone who gets beaten.”

“You might not have lied if you knew the consequences.”

“I don’t see how it alleviates my fault.”

“Okay, Delilah was unjustly punished with your charge, but your finger was hurt. How is it that no one has noticed? Adults must act with maturity with children.”

Corvo remembered one time Emily had thrown a lesson book through her balcony. The eleven-years-old girl pretended she did not know where it had been, but lie was a mask that was too difficult to wear. Insecure, Emily had not held more than fifteen minutes when her father questioned her and finally confessed with a shameful face.

“And what did the great Royal Protector do in his life to know both children and their vices?” Jessamine asked, finally turning to him.

“You would be surprised. At fourteen, I drank in the glass of a drunkard. He was too blind to notice me, but we don’t deceive a drunk man about alcohol: he saw that his glass was less full. I managed to make him believe that cider evaporated faster than water and that he had to drink the rest quickly.”

They burst out laughing together: they had shared a thousand memories, a thousand confessions, a thousand thoughts, but some still remained to be discovered. Corvo put his lips on Jessamine’s forehead.

“We all did some nonsense, Jessamine. It doesn’t make you a horrible or vile person. You don’t have to blame yourself too harshly: those who hurt Delilah are the ones who exiled her and punished her severely.”

“Still, promise me that you will not touch the painting. Whether I feel guilty or not doesn’t change anything: don’t kill Delilah, Corvo, please.”

He promised not to fire the canvas since his love asked him.

The morning mail added some balm to the heart: Kirin Jindosh told them that their daughter was now at home, in good health. Without the events of the night, Jessamine would have taken a boat to Karnaca, accompanied by Corvo. But the witches’ attack kept them from seeing Emily even for a few days.

The Empress took the pen and answered Jindosh’s financial requests. In a small suitcase, she put on some necessities, some shirts, some underwear and, confident in the abilities of the Inventor, added two trousers. With a tender gesture, she added hairpins belonging to the heiress. These ivory stems would soon touch Emily’s hair. The mother laid a kiss on it, hoping that this contact would reach her daughter’s locks.

 

Before she could find a more appropriate accessory, Emily stuck a pen to hold her bun. As long as it did not fall into the water, Jindosh would not tell her anything. Or rather, he will not know. She had hesitated with other tools that were on his desk but she preferred not to touch it. At dawn, the Inventor had warned her that he would be away for the day and that he would not be home until nightfall. He had also repeated his warning that the heiress should not venture into the mansion. It had been three days since the mermaid had bathed in the underground lake and the owner wanted to make sure that she would be less adventurous in the future.

For the moment, her only daring act was to sit at Jindosh’s desk. Hands crossed in front of her, her back straight, Emily looked at the clockwork soldier who was standing to the left of the office, static.

“Soldier. Bring me some tea.” Emily jumped when the bird’s head turned to her. “Forget what I just said, I was joking. Besides you can’t even carry a cup.”

Taking care to not disrupt the order of this universe of papers, screws and magnifying glasses, Emily explored the place of work of her host. Leaves were covered with calculations that seemed to combine impossible measures, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. There were symbols that Emily did not recognize and the results went beyond her understanding. Luckily, Jindosh did not just speak the language of the numbers and she found some correspondence. There were answers for customers wishing to buy his creations and to-do lists. Jindosh had noticed somewhere that he had to adjust the temperature of the water robot in the kitchen, finding his coffee or tea still too hot.

Emily found documents tied with a strap, a message on top of it. Sokolov’s signature at the bottom of the page immediately caught his eye.

“ _My dear Jindosh,_

_Several years have passed since your expulsion from the Academy of Natural Philosophy, yet I have never forgotten your talent. That is why I spoke about you to our Empress and I think that with the bases that I could gather and your skills, you will be able to help the heiress._

_You have never followed the advice of others, but I want to warn you anyway: please, Jindosh, respect the limits of common sense and ethics. This is our future Empress._

_Anton Sokolov_ ”

It was a rather short letter, but it allowed the reader to know two things: that Jindosh was a former student of the Tyvian teacher and that he had been expelled from the Academy of Natural Philosophy. Emily would have liked to know why, but judging by the old professor’s tone, there was certainly a connection with Jindosh’s questionable morality. She understood better why the scientist had so easily abandoned the idea of mechanical legs for a transplant. It only remained for her to hope that he would keep his commitments regarding her only wish: a perfectly willing donor.

Emily then found a drawing. Even if it was only a sketch, it was enough to see that Jindosh did not have the talent of Sokolov. The Tyvian professor was very expressive in his art: his portraits reflected an angular view of the world while marrying the colors with a unique harmony. If Sokolov favored hard angles, Jindosh seemed to prefer curves and precise details. The pencil had danced a waltz on the paper, printing a tail of fish traced with lead. Each shell was a small bridge and they dressed all the space, reaching a woman’s stomach. The portrait was incomplete, content with the subject of study, but Emily had recognized herself, although she did not think herself so thin.

Through being measured, weighed, silvergraphied, and analyzed, Emily had come to the conclusion that Jindosh knew her body better than the men with whom she had shared her bed. Absorbed in his work, Jindosh touched Emily as a phrenologist fumbles the skull of a criminal. He analyzed her as a zoologist who would have discovered a new animal. All his contacts were mechanical but were still marked with a certain respect. She appreciated how he asked her each time the authorization to lift her, to carry her. This study prolonged Emily’s pleasure of being a mystical creature. She who had always dreamed of monstrous tales, of fantastic myths, her hybrid body composed her own legend.

However the mermaid had begun to be bored of her condition: the chimeras were deceiving the men’s eyes for about fifty pages; Emily had had fun playing the naiad for sixteen long months. Even the most mischievous fairy would have been bored. Long exiled from the human world, the creature took pleasure in becoming Emily Kaldwin, the heir to the throne of the Empire of the Islands again. She often discussed with Jindosh, had got back to human gestures and daily habits again. The modified part of her body became more bearable and soon her siren condition would be reduced to memory.

The scientist and the heiress shared meals as well as conversations, and if Emily had noticed that her host was rather talkative, he was mostly narcissistic and showed only the best of himself. The guest knew few details about Jindosh and she wanted to analyze this eccentric being at her turn.

Raising the sketch, the siren noticed that a text was written on the back.

“ _Dear Kirin,_ ” was the first line. The sender could only be a relative or an intimate person to use the first name of the Inventor. Emily hesitated but the missive was so short that her eyes had already read everything.

“ _Dear Kirin,_

_There was a demonstration of your clockwork soldiers near our home, I wanted to take our mother there but she refused. I attended it alone and was very impressed. It may be too late to tell you, but I’m proud of you._

_Emil Jindosh_ ”

The date was recent: Kirin Jindosh had received these compliments a month ago. The young woman put the letter down carefully, the face with the sketch turned towards her. She understood that it was the brother, elder or younger, of the Inventor. The distant tone of the missive did not reflect a brotherly love. And if Jindosh had used it as draft paper, it was unlikely that these compliments would really make him happy. With his pronounced tendency to work, Emily had almost forgotten that Jindosh could have a family and the worries that go with it usually.

 

“My dear Jindosh!”

Jindosh smirked a smile: he hated that one precedes his name of this ‘dear’ so exuberant. Few people really thought that the Inventor was _dear_ to them. At least the smile of Baroness Finch’s nephew seemed sincere.

“My _dear_ Finch.”

The little man, round as a carboy, walked towards his guest. Jindosh almost had to lean over to shake Amos Finch’s chubby hand. When a guard closed the big portal, the iron began to whine, interrupting the birds’ song and the buzzing of the insects. The many flowers in the garden imitated the palette of colors of a painter, brightening the horizon of the hospital that stood above.

“You arrive at a quiet hour, Jindosh: the pills have been administered and all the patients are quiet, adorably quiet.”

Far from being a doctor, Amos Finch was rather the benefactor of the Asylum of Karnaca. Vaguely curious about the sciences of the mind, Finch was especially attracted by the prestige of the position of director. Whenever he was called doctor Finch, pride crowned him like an emperor. Jindosh felt a certain disdain for this valuable title bought like a property, but he had no resentment against Finch in particular. He knew it: money was a god who fascinated as much as the Outsider. And precisely: Finch quickly noticed the briefcase Jindosh was holding.

“You came with some gifts?”

“I never come empty-handed, Finch.”

“Always so courteous, Jindosh, so courteous, a real model that I should follow! Look at us: we started chatting while we’re still in the gardens! Come, we will enjoy the splendid view from my office. A beautifully splendid view.”

Finch had this verbal tic that made him to repeat and amplify every sentence just so he could kill silence. The absence of noise seemed to be a phobia.

Before reaching the top floor of the building and gazing at Karnaca, the two men had to cross the asylum. Inside, the large windows were concealed by curtains so the bright light of the region does not scare the most sensitive patients. Few furniture filled the void of this immense hall: security was getting along with reserved simplicity.

In one corner there was a coffin-shaped cage. During Jindosh’s last visit, the Inventor had seen a man who seemed as strong as an ox locked up in that prison. The insane man had continually tapped his forehead against the bars until marks were printed on his head and he had sung obscene songs Jindosh had heard from the upper floor. But everything was for the safety of the patient, the precious safety of the patient according to the director. Whenever a patient behaved badly, horribly badly, Finch’s face turned red and he began to stammer, stifled with shame. Jindosh had an irresistible desire to laugh every time he saw the baroness’ nephew annihilated by embarrassment.

When the elevator arrived, a nurse with an elderly patient freed the place. The nurse greeted them respectfully and asked the patient to do the same. The old woman, her eyes bright, nodded but only in the direction of Jindosh, totally ignoring the director of the establishment.

Amos Finch did not lie when he praised the beauty of his office and the landscape. The room had been set up in a veranda where the stained glass windows replaced the paintings and, under the pieces of colored glass, Karnaca shone. The sea became sometimes green, sometimes violet or sometimes orange. The buildings, with red or cream facades, played with hues, dressing with varied lights. It was scarcely noon and the sun made the swells shine. A pleasant breeze was spinning on the balcony, inviting the two men to savor its fresh hugs. Jindosh settled into one of the red leather armchairs that were protected under an awning. He kept the briefcase close to him, making it clear to his potential seller that the business was not yet concluded. Finch poured whiskey into two glasses and they clinked them.

“You must know, Finch, that it’s not just for courtesy that I brought back a little something. As I said in my message, I have a service to ask you.”

“Do you have a new experience going on, Jindosh?”

“Effectively. You will forgive me for not being able to tell you about it at the moment: to be in my secret would expose you to danger.”

“To danger? What danger?”

“Because if the experiment goes wrong, you will know that I failed and I can’t stand that my bruised ego has witnesses.”

Finch laughed with his guest.

“Oh yes, it would be a real danger! But well, you must tell me what you need?”

“I need a patient. Anonymous if possible or a person who no longer has any family.”

“But you will return him to me?”

“I hope, that’s my goal anyway. But the experience may be quite long and no family could endure an absence of two weeks without asking questions.”

Pensive, Finch raised his face. The spots of color slipped on his skin and scrambled his expression, making it puzzled. Many of the patients were dropouts or exiled members, and if they were not orphans, their family did not seek to see them again. However, relatives paid internment and some paid astronomical sums: when they could not love with the heart, they loved with coins. In addition, like any good noble, Amos Finch was allergic to scandal, but he could trust Jindosh on this point: all the rumors about the Inventor had never been proven. Himself he had never dared to ask the concerned who were true and which ones were false.

“You surely need a deposit.” Jindosh remarked, finally handing the briefcase over to Finch. The director was now allowed to open the folder and inspect the inside: there was a lot of money. But in addition to the fascinating color of the ingots, there was an opportunity to the key.

“That said, my failure would be a profit for you, Finch, because it would make me come back for another subject and it would take only two more sums like this one to be able to offer you one of my clockwork soldiers.”

This precision filled the director with joy. The Karnaca Asylum did not really need a clockwork soldier, especially since the machine could scare a few residents, but the pleasure of owning one of these killer birds was a way to expose its wealth. The soldier would be sublime in a corner of the office: inactive, it would be an original decorative element, the olive wood would be painted by the colored rays, the metal would be brightened. And in case of intrusion, the robot would defend Finch.

The little man got up from his chair and approached Jindosh, grabbing his hand to squeeze it.

“Deal, my dear Jindosh, it’s a deal!”

Still this ‘dear’. The amount paid would be mostly reimbursed by Jessamine Kaldwin, but as for his patience, it would be exhausted. Jindosh hoped his time would not be lost.

“Come, tell me which patient corresponds to your projects.”

 

Emily rolled the wheelchair to the elevator. She had grown tired of doing several laps on the top floor of this laboratory and there was nothing left to explore. Moreover, noon approached and she was planning to serve herself in the kitchen.

The young woman was impressed by the silence: when Jindosh was present, his monologues were the signs of life in the house. Now she only heard belts, gears and cables. All the organs of the manor, formerly discreet, resounded under the floors and behind the walls.

Despite the warnings, Emily wanted to take advantage of Jindosh’s absence to discover more places. She stopped on the floor of the guest area. The gates of the elevator opened on a living room with a glass floor, the famous glass floor under which she had swum. The mermaid perceived the place better now: a harp, a piano, chairs, tables ready to welcome a buffet. Much smaller than Dunwall’s reception hall, certainly, but the room was brighter. There was a charm in this house that seduced Emily. She moved the wheels of her chair when a clockwork soldier appeared just in front of her, spreading its blades as a threatening gesture.

“ _Profile identified: Emily Kaldwin. You do not have permission to go further. Only the laboratory and the kitchen are accessible to you._ ”

The blades dissuaded Emily from insisting. With legs, she would have slipped under the machine or flew over, but with her fishtail, the siren would be operated before time. She sighed and returned to the elevator, sticking her tongue out.

“You’ve forgotten the title of nobility, it’s _Lady_ Emily Kaldwin.”

In her mind, she was already planning to go explore Jindosh’s room: this place was not forbidden to her and there was a mechanism she would have liked to learn to handle, just for the sake of refuting him about her intellectual abilities.

 

‘This one’s from Tyvia, she came to Karnaca twenty years ago to rest, but her condition worsened and she never returned home.”

The patient was the one who had greeted Jindosh in the lobby. Again, her stoic profile was solely for the Inventor. She had the white complexion of Tyvian natives whom the climate of Serkonos had not succeeded in modifying. Just as her eyes had the color of icy seas and this lucidity did not accord with any neurosis. The old woman stared at all the visitors in the hope that one day someone would notice that she was sane, but if Jindosh was an excellent observer, he was not altruistic. He knew that sane people were locked up here among lunatics, just as he knew that orphans were being mistreated in refuges, as he knew that hospitalized young women were raped by the doctors. The misery of the world left him indifferent.

“But I guess that a young subject would be better?”

“A young subject is more likely to survive the experiment, yes.”

It was time for manual work at the hospital, deepening the appetite before lunch. Young skinny girls were sewing, their faces expressionless but soothed. Drugged with laudanum, the patients were allowed to use pointed or sharp tools, but when the effects would finished, everything would be neatly stored in padlocked compartments. An old man was painting on a wooden board. He tried to put the tip of the brush in his mouth but a nurse prevented him every time, telling him he would eat later. The artist was floating in his shirt and Jindosh was not sure he was eating enough.

The Inventor saw a patient with morphology close to Emily’s: a tall blonde who was threading beads on a string. She had a soft look, and from time to time she raised her collar under her nose to mimic a mustache and made her neighbors and the staff laugh.

“This one would be perfect.”

“I can’t remember her name, though. Agnes or Irene? I can’t tell—”

“No matter what her identity is, Finch, as long her family, if there’s still one, don’t ask about her every week.”

“That, on the other hand, I’m sure: she has only an aunt who lives in the north of the island. She is over fifty and moves little.”

The girl looked at Jindosh and began to mimic a mustache with a big smile. Her totally faded irises did not reflect any emotion. She was not aware of what she was doing. Abandoned and dizzy, yes, she would be perfect.

“Nurses will bring her to you tomorrow morning. We’ll see each other the next day at Breanna Ashworth’s reception anyway, then you’ll give me some news, won’t you?”

“Of course. By the way, mind to give a little something to the nurses, just to pay their silence.”

“Yes, yes, indeed, we must pay their silence.”

 

Emily operated the lever a first time. The center of the room turned, furniture was replaced by other, adapting to the new function of the place. She moved the mechanism again and eventually, she recognized a bedroom, a bathroom or an office. However she did not recognize the usefulness of this carousel.

“How many afternoons of boredom before inventing that?”

The soldier behind her looked like it was put to sleep but Emily did not care: active or not, the automatons never answered her. She still had fun talking to them.

“Didn’t you ever tell him it wasn’t practical to take a pee during the night?”

Emily manipulated the lever several times to memorize what was changing. If the apparent walls were changing, the recesses too and the young woman suspected the presence of some secret passages. Handicapped by her legs, Emily had to postpone further exploration for later.

Her wheelchair advanced to a gallery of silvergraphs. She knew the invention but she had never seen so many shots in the same place. The heiress had only visited the wide of Serkonos and its sea currents; there she discovered streets, faces, houses, slices of life. Emily hoped to be as close to her people as her mother was, and she watched the pictures carefully. In order to better see those hung higher, the siren left her chair to sit on the edge of the desk. By leaning, she inadvertently activated the audiograph.

“ _Lady Kaldwin is a very interesting subject._ ” The named one jumped, almost persuaded that Jindosh had come back and had just called her. When she realized that a recording had just begun, she expired at length to calm her distraught heart.

“ _I’d never studied a fish woman and I regret having to operate instead of dissecting her: it’s a rare and I would have liked to keep her as she’s now. But I have commitments to keep— She explained to me that she felt abandoned in the sea, but Lady Kaldwin seems to forget that she has her family to support her. A young nobleman like her certainly did not imagine living such a situation where there’s neither luxury nor etiquette._ ” Emily felt upset. Jindosh seemed to feel some rancor against the well-born. Now, the more she pondered, the more she realized that Jindosh’s name did not recall her anything: there were such gold names as the Boyle or the Bunting; then there were more discreet families like the Ramsey. She tried to remember all her lessons and the surname Jindosh never emerged. The manor, the ease of life, the acquaintances, the Academy, all of this was accessible because Kirin Jindosh had surpassed his contemporaries just with his mind. “ _I thought her case would tire me, but it was before I was inspired for another idea about it: instead of mechanical prosthesis, a transplant would be possible. I’ve already managed to bring together both parts of a dead body. I would have to try on a living subject to be sure that the experience with Lady Kaldwin could be successful since The Royal Protector was unequivocal: the death of his daughter would provoke mine. Anyway, I’m confident and Lady Kaldwin has become a fascinating subject again._ ”

The young woman remained pensive: she thought that Jindosh was an inventor, an engineer who only took care of gears or bolts; obviously, he improvised himself as a surgeon too. She wondered how far this man could be amoral. And when he had gathered the two parts of a corpse?

 

Breanna Ashworth was an elegant woman. Billie did not know if this grace was an appearance modeled by spells, but despite the bad news reported, the curator remained dignified. Her face was leaning over the guest list for her next reception, betraying no expression. The three novices and Blanche were standing in a row in front of the director, just under an imposing chandelier. Among the paintings, a stuffed owl watched them with its eyes that looked like two yellow moons. A smell of flowers, subtle blend of jasmine and honeysuckle, perfumed the air, but Billie could not see any plant. Maybe it was Breanna’s perfume.

“What happened?”

“Claudia injured a guard while we only had to immobilize them for our sisters could recover the code on the bracelet.”

Claudia was suffocated but did not dare to contradict her superior in front of Breanna. Already white, her face was now livid.

“If you allow me to give you my version, Lady Ashworth?”

Despite the polite tone, Billie took a step forward, leaving no choice to the curator. Breanna gave her the permission.

“Claudia did nothing. The guard pretended to be hurt to destabilize us. The Royal Protector, whom I held, took the opportunity to escape. We had to fight with the two remaining guards and even though they were inferior in numbers, we were overwhelmed. Claudia and Adela never had to face guards.”

“And how did you get out of it?”

“I always have a knife on me. Not much and that can’t compete with a sword but used well, it is an effective weapon. By attacking the two guards, I opened the way for Claudia and Adela to escape. It was an unequal fight and I didn’t want them to be killed stupidly.”

Breanna raised her eyebrows and looked at Blanche. The witch nodded with confirmation: she had been surprised by Billie’s reactivity as she was usually so dull and quiet.

“You protected your sisters. Tell me your name.”

“Billie Lurk.”

“Blanche, what about our other sisters?”

The witch stopped biting her lower lip to answer:

“I don’t know. I also preferred to follow Billie because I suspected they would need help leaving the Dunwall Tower. I was the only one with powers and we were able to flee all four. I don’t know if the Royal Protector executed our sisters or if they are held captive.”

An displeasing silence passed. Billie listened to the visitors of the Royal Conservatory who expressed how delighted they were by the wonders they observed. She loved the place herself and the director’s office was a real museum. But the moment was ill chosen to admire the silvergraphs and the multitude of encyclopedias preserved behind Breanna.

“I’m very disappointed, Blanche.” Her voice was cold and a breakup would have been less painful for Blanche. The young witch lowered her head, her shoulders slumped: the weight of guilt replaced the pressure of the chandelier above her head.

“I am, too, Lady Ashworth. And I’m waiting for the first opportunity to redeem myself.”

The curator dismissed them but asked Billie to stay a little longer. Claudia was annoyed: the young woman cast a look of jealousy to her superior, a look that escaped her and she turned away very quickly, hiding her feelings. She wanted to be Breanna and Delilah’s favorite _with_ Billie. It was out of the question that her lover would receive favors without her.

Billie approached the office. Breanna had never noticed her before: too discreet, too retiring, this novice had never looked to be involved in anything. The curator noted rigidity in the features of this woman who did not seem to know fear. How was it that she had never spotted this apprentice?

“Why did you help your associates?” Breanna used the word ‘associates’ and not ‘sisters’ just like before. Billie suspected that there was an intention behind it: to look detached so she could not influence her answer.

“I didn’t want Adela to lose her life that night, it would have been unfair as she left a life of misery behind her to move on.”

“And for Claudia?”

“Because I love her.”

Breanna noted how Billie justified herself for saving Adela, while for Claudia the reason was brief: love. The curator was born into a family rich in fortune but poor in affection. Belonging to the fair sex, Breanna Ashworth was only a candidate to marry, a womb to produce heirs, a living decoration of worldly salons. She had never regretted having fled this golden world, discovering more intense joys in Delilah’s arms. One day, Delilah had told her how much she loved that romantic side, a side that Breanna was trying to hide by social habit, but she knew how sentimental she was.

Billie’s answer pleased her and the lady even smiled, surprising the novice.

“I see. You must understand why I want to release Delilah then.”

Billie had imagined the witches were trying to free their mistress to place her on the throne, but Breanna was visibly motivated by more powerful feelings. Billie would kill anyone who would attack Claudia; Breanna would do the same for Delilah. But the novice was less romantic than her superior: she was more passionate, more ardent and especially more mutilated. Past disappointments and Claudia’s changes had disillusioned her about the subject of love.

If the witch had wanted to give her more importance in her plans, Billie would have refused. Luckily, Breanna offered her nothing and allowed her to leave.

Claudia was waiting at the corner of the corridor, her lips stretched into a smile: she was relieved that the interview was so short finally. She wrapped her arms around Billie’s shoulders and kissed her under the ear. The black hair still bore some traces of salt, memories of the boat trip to return to Karnaca.

“What did she tell you?”

“She asked me why I protected you.”

“And what did you answer?”

“That I love you.”

For a brief instant, Billie found the old Claudia again. Freckles, signs of innocence, red hair, proof of passion. They kissed each other by tying their fingers together.

“I thought for a moment that she was going to make you a witch, a favorite.

“I thought it too, but I would have refused.”

Claudia broke the embrace, taken aback.

“Why?”

“It’s not my fight, Claudia. What Breanna feels for Delilah, I can understand, but I won’t love them. If I’m here, it’s because you wanted to follow them. But there’s only you who counts.”

It was not enough for Claudia. She admired Billie’s gesture of saving her for love. But if her involvement did not go further, then it made no sense.

“Billie. If I become a witch, if I become a favorite, will you still love me?”

The two women crossed their arms at the same time, unconsciously.

“I hope I will.” It was her only answer. Without waiting for a reaction, Billie turned on her heels.

 

Jindosh was leaning on the inside balcony: he suspected that Emily would be in the underground lake again and he was right. The mermaid seemed to enjoy this corner with the waterfalls and the closeness to nature.

“Would you like to come over, Lady Kaldwin? I have something for you.”

The creature approached the edge, sprouted her hair and wiped herself before putting on her shirt. Just using her arms, she climbed the stones and went over the guardrail. Back in her wheelchair, Emily saw a suitcase near Jindosh. A suitcase that belonged to her.

“What is it?”

“Some of your belongings we’ve received today.”

With a sudden joy, Emily opened the box and observed the objects inside. They were only clothes, care products, trivia, but the siren felt she found a little more of her lost humanity day after day. She brandishes one of the trousers.

“You were pretentious enough to tell my mother to send trousers?”

“No.” Replied the inventor, surprised. “It’s on her own, but I’m very flattered.”

Emily delved deeper into business and laughed: now she could brush her teeth, take care of her nails, perfume and wax. Decidedly her mother had thought of all the details. An heiress had an image to look after and the Empress took care of her daughter’s appearance.

“Now that you have something to occupy, will you stop coming here?”

“No I won’t. I love swimming in this pool and there’s no danger, I respect your instructions. But perhaps you’re afraid that I understand the mechanisms of the manor and that I explore it more?”

“I’m not afraid of the impossible.”

She laughed and was surprised to see that it was without malice.

“I’m likely using your bathroom now. Don’t worry, I’m not frivolous, I never spend two hours in there. I may be a noble but I know how to adapt myself to situations.” Jindosh did not notice, not understanding the intention in this precision. Accustomed to cultivating an image, the Inventor’s opinion counted and Emily wanted to prove that she was neither fragile nor delicate. She despised the indolent and apathetic bourgeois enough, so it was out of the question to look like them.

Emily found a hair pike and removed the pen that served as her attachment.

“By the way, I can give you this back. It still works, promised.”

“It seemed to me that I had forgotten to tell you to do like home, but maybe I told you finally?”

“The next time you’re away, you’ll have to order your soldiers that the Emily Kaldwin profile should not touch the pens!”

Emily had just finished combing her hair. She would have liked to have a mirror, just to recognize her profile.

“I’m going to stop borrowing your shirts too. Even if this one suits me pretty well, black is my color.”

“Black’s the color of all Dunwall’s nobles. Although you are less austere.”

Jindosh recognized that Emily was far from the imagined heiress: she was daring and had a lot of humor, maybe too much for a future empress. Finally, she was certainly mischievous enough to understand the riddles of his field.

“I don’t want to be called Emily the Morose. But tell me your day: you inquired to find me a donor?”

“You’ll certainly be called Emily the Curious.” Jindosh replied, carrying the suitcase while Emily rolled her chair. He agreed to leave the effects of the heiress in his bathroom: it would take too much space in the laboratory and when Emily had legs, the recovery period would be long, forcing her to live in the mansion for a while. He must get used now to this presence which invaded him little by little.

“It concerns me after all.”

“True. But every thing in its time: before finding a potential donor, I’ve to train and try the experience on another subject.”

At least the scientist was honest. She was afraid to drag him on this subject of conversation, knowing that she was incapable of playing the convincing ignorant.

“You mean you’re going to cut a body in half and stitch it up?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do you have a lot of knowledge of anatomy?”

“More than you imagine.”

“Your sex life doesn’t count, Jindosh.”

Jindosh stopped, surprised, not expecting this answer.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m joking! You were also a pupil of Anton Sokolov, weren’t you? The difference between us is that you have retained your lessons while I mostly remembered his bawdy humor. It has also a little rub off on mine—”

“I could have recognized the register, yes. I didn’t think our future Empress was so—”

“Free?”

“Yes.”

“You’re so serious all the time, there’s no better victim than you for this kind of humor. But perhaps, in your opinion, the nobles are only entitled to subtle jokes and silent laughter?”

“Your humor doesn’t bother me, it just— surprised me.”

“Then I’m sorry. It’s because I need to laugh nowadays, otherwise I’ll go crazy thinking about this operation.”

“You don’t have to feel so bad about it: if the first attempt succeeds, everything will be fine for you.”

“Did you find someone then? Why is she not here?”

“She’ll arrive tomorrow.”

“And if the experiment works, when do you think you’ll operate me?”

“As soon as we find a donor. For now, I’ll try the experiment tomorrow. Then I could visit some hospitals or dispensaries. The director of the Royal Conservatory gives a little evening the day after tomorrow, I’m unfortunately obliged to go, which shifts a little, but the next day, I’ll find a pair of legs to replace your fishtail.”

“It’s so charming, said like that.”

Once in the room, Emily activated the lever herself to access the bathroom. Jindosh suspected that she had already explored this part but was disappointed that she made no comment. Not the shadow of a compliment.

“It’s curious: you seem to despise me because I was born in the highest social class, yet I don’t really look like women of the nobility, while you, you behave like a noble to be always so stilted. I thought about it during your absence: Jindosh, it’s not a name that has often marked the luxurious parties in history, is it?”

“That’s right, I come from a rather modest family.”

“And yet, you’re invited to the Royal Conservatory for a private party. In your place, I will be already thinking about a contagious disease to avoid going there.” She smiled, her fist under her chin. “Take a look at the spectacle we make: the modest man who seeks to integrate the higher spheres of society and the heiress of the throne who is delighted to flee the mundane evenings. What a contrast.”

“You are completely mistaken, Lady Kaldwin. What do you think of this mansion?”

“I wanted to visit it but, you know, your soldier prevented me.”

Jindosh pushed back the wheelchair and decided to show Emily the parts that visitors could see. His home was above his social conditions: never could a family member have lived in such an area without the work that had helped him to establish himself among the wealthiest.

The young woman could finally discover the guest room and the atrium which was a kind of personal museum. She noted how the place could be huge and yet so empty at a time. Jindosh explained that he had already organized auctions and receptions here, each time for the sole purpose of presenting his machines.

“I don’t seek to integrate the higher spheres of society, as you say; I try to dominate them, to put them in front of a fact: material wealth is something that can be obtained or lost in a short time, intellectual wealth, on the other hand, remains an essential tool in the world. Why did I build such a mansion, in your opinion?”

“Because you’re a twisted person, Jindosh.” The Inventor laughed. He was used to this remark, but Emily did not have the horrified look the detractors often adopted.

“Apart from this obvious fact?”

“If you only wanted to expose your wealth, you wouldn’t have made a mechanical maze. It was for the pleasure of building something complex, to show an intellectual wealth at the same time.”

“A tribute to engineering, yes. To be absolutely frank with you, I don’t care at all about politics and who’s running it from Dunwall. Whether you’re the next Empress or not, I don’t care.”

“I understood that you don’t help me by social duty but for the challenge, yes.”

“At least you don’t delude yourself.”

She observed the pieces of the old models of the clockwork soldiers: the metal organs were scattered in display cases.

“Societies aren’t eternal and I hope the next generations will be led by scientists. It would be a totally different world then.”

“Despite the ethics?”

“Despite the ethics.”

Emily had to admit that she adhered to Jindosh’s vision: the industry was invading even the most remote countryside, whale oil was a resource that was starting to fail and the empire would soon need minds capable of find a substitute. The face of the world was changing and a new era was beginning. The Industrial Revolution. On the other hand, she was against putting science above humanity.

“I understand what you mean. But there’s a contradiction in your reasoning: your creations require significant funding, without material fortunes, they wouldn’t exist. Even the greatest genius is invisible without the tools he needs. You may despise the richer classes, without them you would never have come so far, your mechanical soldiers wouldn’t exist. You can’t deny that you need financial wealth to access intellectual wealth.”

“Of course. Money isn’t an evil thing, Lady Kaldwin, it’s about what it brings people to do or how it’s spent. For example, I went to see the director of the asylum in Karnaca, this idiot doesn’t even know what a fixed idea, and he’s unable to locate the parietal lobe or the frontal lobe. He’ll never advance the sciences that affect the brain and yet he is director.”

Emily turned over, her arm on the back of her wheelchair. She was tempted to tell him that he was right: the power must be earned and not bought. She herself was haunted by her title, which she wanted to honor. But to confess it so frankly would be ridiculous. She put her hand on his wrist and tried another approach.

“I know you don’t care if I’m the future Empress or not, but maybe you’ll be glad to know that I share your point of view. If you succeed in the experiment, I’ll remember this conversation on the throne and perhaps at last you’ll enjoy a bit Dunwall’s policy.”

“Are you trying to rally a first subject, Lady Kaldwin?”

“Oh you know what it is, with these nobles: we’re never sure of anything about their words.”

He smiled, wanting to thank her but narrowly restraining himself: he did not want to flatter the future Empress too much.

 

Sitting cross-legged on the greasy floor, the witch hummed in a strange tongue. Her eyes were closed, her face reflected a great serenity.

“Hey. Shut up.”

The guard was flipping through the newspaper. His chin almost touched his chest, making his voice even more gruff than usual. He was still hearing the woman’s melody through the bars of the cell.

“Are you going to shut the fuck up?”

Rolling the newspaper, he hit the edge of the table with it, but the sorceress did not listen, stubbornly pursuing her song. The man groaned.

“I can’t wait for the Royal Protector to arrive to question you. You won’t sing the song anymore.”

But when Corvo arrived, the guard showed up to him with a pale, even waxy face.

“Lord Corvo, I— I don’t know how to explain it—”

Corvo looked over the jailer’s shoulder and froze. In the middle of the cell, the witch’s body was hanging. It was impossible to commit suicide in these prisons: there was no hook or beam and no material allowed this gesture. But there, a rose tree from outside had spread its branches into the cell, the bars at the window representing no obstacle. The leaves and thorns completely covered two walls and the ceiling, twisting on the cold stone. The dead woman’s throat was wrapped in a beautiful necklace where blue roses had opened, concealing how the skin had been pierced by the plant darts. But the plants could not hide the blood that had flowed to the ground, soaking the witch’s clothes: the trachea had been torn by the weight of the body too heavy for the embrace.

“I didn’t even know they could do that, these witches.” Said the guard in a plaintive voice, unable to look at the dead behind him. “I didn’t even know.”

“How is it possible?!”

But Corvo’s surprise increased as he approached the cell. Behind the corpse, the flowers had opened and he did not know if he was going crazy or if it was real, the blue dots seemed to write ‘AH AH AH’. He wanted to punch in one of the bars to express his anger, but his astonishment was far too great.

“How is it possible—”

The Royal Protector would have liked to get names, information, but the only answer he could get from this witch was the curious laugh that had appeared on the wall.

 

It seemed as if the sun had rushed to the horizon to hide in the Royal Conservatory. The stars in the sky were eclipsed by all the lights that escaped the huge windows, casting monstrous shadows in the streets and accentuating the height of the redwoods. Claudia was waiting for Billie to finish dressing. They had reconciled, as usual, waiting for the next storm. Claudia had tied her hair under a little top hat covered with clusters of wisteria. A puffy black blouse, transparent on the shoulders fell on white trousers. Billie, meanwhile, had opted for a shirt that imitated the shades of the sea at night and plain black trousers. She was finishing applying blue on her eyelids.

“I love when you wear bright colors. Blue and green suits your complexion.”

“Thank you.”

Claudia handed a chain necklace to her lover. A silver necklace, simple yet Billie considered it too bright.

“We don’t have to do so much: we won’t even be allowed to go past the hall anyway.”

“I know, but this necklace would look beautiful on you.”

Billie agreed to let the jewel pass around her neck. Claudia slid her hands over her strong shoulders and kissed that clenched mouth. Rancor still left a bitter taste on the lips.

“Let’s go.”

Claudia turned away and Billie noticed that the ivy branch bar was starting to come off her hair, slipping down to the neck covered with freckles. She held Claudia and with a clever gesture, enhancing the accessory. The two witches left their apartment and walked silently towards the museum. The nights when the Conservatoire was entertained were never quiet: they could hear the guests chirping like sparrows, the laughter bursting like little bells. Their ears even heard the music played by audiographs. The violin led the silhouettes to dance in the street, the feet preferring the cobblestones rather than the grass that surrounded the museum. Billie tried to sneak up the stairs but a busty woman hit her and pushed her away. Stumbling, Billie bumped into a tall man.

“Sorry.”

He helped her to get on her feet.

“No harm meant.”

He had almond eyes that gave him a feline look, confirmed by his fine mustache. Billie felt like a rat in front of a cat with a metallic look, so she moved away quickly.

“Damn, you just jostle the Grand Inventor of Duke Abele!”

“I didn’t jostle anyone, I was pushed. I don’t have fun stumbling over people.”

“I know but this man has a strange reputation.”

“I think I remember some rumors, but frankly, Claudia, it doesn’t matter. If he tries to kill me just because of an accident, then it’s just an asshole that’s no better than the drunkards in the taverns.”

The two women entered the museum. The statues, covered with wreaths of flowers, riveted in phlegm with waiters who held free cups of champagne. The guests were numerous, wearing their finery: rich fabrics adorned the body, supporting brilliant jewelry. Billie and Claudia, although pretty, preferred to keep low in this crowd. Some people took advantage of the event to improvise as a guide, others preferred to take a walk at night to enjoy the fresh air.

Breanna Ashworth went from group to group: the perfect hostess ensured that the evening was to everyone’s taste. A service to ask? She listened. A compliment to receive? She smiled modestly. Her gloved fingers brushed those who saluted her, both available and inaccessible. The director of the Conservatoire was really a fascinating woman. Her eyes met Billie’s, and the witch tilted her head for a discreet but respectful reverence. Billie had drawn her good graces unintentionally. Then the curator went to a duet where Billie recognized the man she had accidentally hit. Obviously, the Grand Inventor did not seem angry at all, at most thoughtful, a smirk on his lips.

“I don’t feel that the Grand Inventor will try to kill me. He must rather have fun criticizing those around him. Look at the air he has.”

“I understand him: look at the hat of the woman on his right? It looks like a hen stuck in a tube. And that color— what is this mixture of pink and green?”

Billie pressed her hand to her lips, choking a laugh she tried to turn into a coughing.

If Jindosh could see most of the guests, Amos Finch had more trouble on his side. The asylum director was hoping to get closer to one of the stairs to climb a few steps and get a better view. Breanna thought at first that the Inventor was alone and just caught up and extended her hand to both.

“It’s a real pleasure to see you tonight.”

“And it’s a real pleasure to be welcomed by someone of your quality, Lady Ashworth.”

Breanna called a waiter and offered her guests something to drink.

“While I think about it, doctor Finch, you know I still have this Millay painting you want to buy.”

“Oh yes, that’s right, that’s right, Lady Ashworth. I’m sorry; I think I’ll push back the purchase again. Do not hesitate to sell it to someone else if you find a better offer, you know I won’t take it badly.”

“Nonsense, I keep it until you have the sum, the painting will not change for a few more weeks.”

“What I mean is that I started saving for another masterpiece. You see, our friend Jindosh here has made me a fairly large purchase lately and I just need a few more ingots in my pocket so I could finally afford one of these marvelous clockwork soldiers.”

“Oh all this technology. This madness of the machines exceeds me.” Breanna said, gulping down some sparkling wine.

“I’d be curious to know what you can do without technology, Lady Ashworth.” Jindosh asked, staring at her. The director was not intimidated by this surgeon’s gaze and her lips curved to draw a provoking smile.

“I could do everything, Jindosh. Absolutely everything.”

A discreet verbal joust took place between the two: the first rejected the utility of the machines; the second vaunted the merits of the technology. They were too far away for Claudia and Billie to hear.

“Do you think Breanna is flirting with the Grand Inventor? I’ve never seen her like that in front of a man.”

“I doubt.” Replied Billie. “We can perfectly see that he’s a man. Even if his cut looks vaguely like Delilah’s, well, it’s true. Oh shit, maybe you’re right, she might invite him for a private interview.”

Concealed in one corner, the two women laughed again. The groups around joked so much and spoke so loudly that they were finally rather discreet. But to their surprise, Breanna walked away with the little man, leaving Jindosh alone.

“Really, you’re too generous, Lady Ashworth! Really too generous, too charitable. How can I accept your offer?”

“It’s fine, doctor Finch and you know it. Your patients take you so much time, I can make a gesture to give you this picture and offer you some comfort. Especially since it will be beautiful in your home.”

“I was thinking to find a system to hang paintings in my asylum office, it’s very beautiful, as you know, but it lacks a little decoration.”

“Don’t do it! The sun’s rays would damage the painting.”

“Really?”

They had just arrived on the second floor and the noise of the guests was cut off, yet Amos Finch continued to speak loudly.

“A painting is a work of art to be cared for, doctor Finch: that’s why the Conservatory is so dark, you have to protect the treasures from the sun’s rays. I’ll give you the indications to preserve this marvel of 1848.”

“And I’ll follow all your instructions to the letter. Absolutely all.”

Breanna closed the door of her office behind her, letting her guest walk in the middle of the carpet. He admired this huge library and thought he should have the same. The witch scratched a match and lit a long purple candle. Strange symbols were engraved in the wax. A strange smell came out.

“What is this funny perfume?”

“Oh sorry, it’s a candle that a friend brought me back from Pandyssia. It’s the smell of a bay or something like that, I don’t remember. It’s a very relaxing fragrance, you don’t think so?”

The witch was waiting for the scent to captivate the guest. Amos Finch tried to sit down but finding no seats, he fell back on the carpet. Breanna approached, supporting him.

“Do you feel ill, doctor Finch? The champagne was maybe too strong, and then all these steps have exhausted you—”

“I feel dizzy.” His voice was plaintive.

The candle did not come from the distant continent but had been concocted by Breanna herself. In the wax had been mixed a magic decoction that managed to untie the tongue of the most sensitive, causing them to confess any crime. The witch liked to hear secrets, monitoring everything that was happening in Karnaca to better plant her claws in this region. Assuring her authority to Serkonos was to maintain a safe place for the return of her queen.

In addition, her intuition led her to discover what Jindosh was preparing: the Grand Inventor always jealously guarded his creations and sold them at a staggering price, Jessamine Kaldwin herself could not have bought more than three clockwork soldiers. What could Jindosh have bought from this so-called alienist? What asylum did the scientist lacked?

“Inhale deeply, doctor Finch, it’s a little dizziness that will go away. Does your stomach hurt?”

“No.”

“It isn’t the champagne then, it’s certainly the steps. Go ahead, inhale, inhale. Good. Breathe calmly, your dizziness will fade. Do you have clear ideas?”

“Yes.”

“Who am I?”

“Breanna Ashworth, curator of the Royal Conservatory.” His answers were pronounced on a monotone flow. The victim was hypnotized.

“And who are you?”

“Amos Finch, director of Karnaca asylum.”

“And what did Kirin Jindosh buy you?”

“A patient. He wanted a young woman with no close family.”

“For what purpose?”

“He didn’t want to tell me, he’s afraid that a failure is revealed.”

“Is the patient at his home?”

“Yes, the operation is a success. But he didn’t want to give me more details, just that my patient will return to my asylum in three days.”

Breanna patted Finch’s cheek.

“You’re perfectly well, doctor Finch. Keep breathing, the spell will pass.”

She left the man lying on the carpet, blew out the candle and opened the window for the scent to dissipate. The enchanted would be released in a few minutes once his lungs breathed a purer air.

“I’m so sorry, Lady Ashworth, I don’t know what I have.”

“Don’t apologize, doctor Finch, a discomfort can happen to anyone. Stay here as much as you want. As soon as you feel better, join us in the lobby. And I promise you to do not tell anyone about sleeping on my carpet.”

Breanna left her office and tried to master a quiet rhythm. Returning to her guests, she saw Jindosh talking to some people. But it was Billie she was looking for. She found her adept near the entrance who shared a cigarette with Claudia. The director asked her to follow her apart.

“Billie, I need you tonight. Do you know where the Grand Inventor’s mansion is?”

“Yes. Difficult to miss seeing how it’s visible.”

“Go right now, I trust you for an investigation. I don’t know how long he plans to stay this evening but it’s a real night bird and unless he’s bored, he won’t leave before two in the morning. You have more than five hours to discover what he’s hiding: his friend Finch told me that the Inventor had bought him a young lunatic for an experiment.”

“Is it really surprising when you know the reputation of the guy?”

“Not really, it’s the sum paid which is surprising: it’s a project that must be really important to him, but he usually works on mechanical subjects and not alive. And when he touches a human body, he doesn’t worry about the survival. There’s something very weird about it, so find out what’s going on.”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Ashworth, but why me? And alone?”

“You know how to fight and you’re smart. The Clockwork Mansion has some pitfalls so be very careful. First, aim for his laboratory in the solarium and extend your search if you can’t find anything. Unfortunately, this part of his home is kept away from the eyes of others and I’ve no more information. I want you to come back to me safe and sound. I trust you.”

Billie saw Claudia’s annoyed face pulling nervously on the cigarette.

“I’m going right now.”

 

Billie knew a few stories that had been made around the Inventor’s twisted mind, but she knew it all too well: rumors were always woven by bad tongues and they did not always reflect the truth. Only a small part most of the time.

Armed with her knife and other accessories to facilitate her infiltration, Billie decided to go through the roof of the house, making a tour of the property from the top. The solarium looked like a round cliff, hiding among the trees. Focusing on balance rather than speed, Billie took care where she put her feet, otherwise the fall in the wooded valleys would be fatal. Lamps were lit, indices of activity. She turned to the dark areas, the sleeping parts of the mansion.

Billie discovered a wide open balcony and slipped into it. Tables, chairs— everything was present to bask in front of a landscape that was to be beautiful. Either this comfort area was for the guests or Jindosh kept it for him. Metal shutters prevented Billie from seeing the next room and confirming her suspicions. Leaning over the guardrail, she saw the solarium.

“Perfect.”

Climbing on a pipe, Billie reached the building she was aiming for. A rusty hatch resisted for a few moments, but as she persevered, the spy spun the iron panel and slid inside, finding an elevator in front of a locked door. The wooden shutter would not have resisted two powerful kicks, but as long as she did not know if she was alone, Billie did not risk it.

Rather than going in the elevator, the intruder took the risk of climbing through the cables. She heard nothing, except the sound of machines. Sentinels or household robots? Billie was hoping for the second option. Through the fence, she saw a place where the facilities were side by side: the intruder could deduce that she had arrived in the heart of the laboratory. Without a sound, Billie passed her head but a clockwork soldier was on patrol. Above, there was a balcony that she could access by resuming her way with the lift cable. She decided to reach this last floor.

Her hands full of grease, the shirt and the pants ruined, Billie really hoped to be alone to use the elevator for leaving after. Walking along the walls, she discovered the balcony. And a silhouette in a wheelchair. A brunette woman with her head bent over something. Billie swallowed a grunt of disappointment. Her knife in hand, she moved slowly towards the woman. It was certainly the insane and, for having already fought with a paranoid, Billie was suspicious of unstable minds, preferring to approach with caution.

As she went further, she noticed that the young woman was reading a book, caught in her reading, elbows on a fishtail. A fishtail? Billie froze when she realized that in the wheelchair was Emily Kaldwin, the heiress metamorphosed by Delilah.

She tried to remember what Claudia had told her. Yes, she remembered now: humiliation and beauty together. A pattern the witch loved, destroying to build even more beautiful. And for once, Billie shared Claudia’s fascination: she judged the heiress magnificent.

Fascinated by this siren, the intruder was unable to approach or hurt her.


	5. C H A P T E R 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /!\ THAT CHAPTER WASN'T BETA-READED. /!\  
> I'm a French native/speaker/writer, I always translate my fic myself then ask for a beta-reading. I wrote two more chapters in French and my beta-reader is a bit busy nowadays and I never push the nice people who agreed to correct my mistakes.
> 
> As it has been 10 days since the last chapter and I write a bit too fast (and like to keep a regular pace) (and I finished my thesis, AH), so I give you the unbeta-readed (?) chapter 4.
> 
> So read at your own risk or wait a bit~ ♥  
> (I guess it's still better than reading the French version with google translate, ahah)

Amos Finch was gripping the ramp firmly while a headache hammered his temples. He could not remember what had just happened: the Curator had offered to lower the price of Millay’s painting so he could buy it, and suddenly he was dizzy in her office before crumbling on the floor. The director had never felt like that: a sensation of flutter had seized him, the feeling of fainting as the body continued to function.

He who could not stand the silence would have given anything for the guests to be quiet. The chandeliers blinded him and Finch decided to join the garden where Breanna was busy in a conversation with the Grand Inventor. She made the effort to show an interest in machines, recognizing from time to time their usefulness but only half-words.

“Doctor Finch, are you feeling better?”, she noticed how pale he was, one of the side effects of this intrusive hypnosis.

“Yes, Lady Ashworth. I want to apologize again. I don’t know what happened—”

“Heat, champagne, fatigue, who knows? You feel better, that’s the only thing that matters.”

“I need some rest, I think I’ll leave even if I would have liked to stay much longer.”

Despite Finch’s state, Jindosh took the risk of emptying his cup: he was on his second drink and he was more resistant to alcohol.

“I follow you, I didn’t intend to stay longer.”

The witch controlled her face as she searched for a way to hold the Inventor for some hours.

“So you don’t have the answer?”

“The answer to what?”

“To my question. I asked you how electricity could replace whale oil. I’ve trouble visualizing what it is, this electricity.”

“The electric _energy_ will replace the whale oil, Lady Ashworth. We’re talking specifically about charges produced by electrons, not just about the beauty of lightning during a storm.”

“Then tell me more: when the forces of nature and science meet, there’s no better union.”

Finch decided to stay, taking his place on a block of marble, leaning his back against ivy. Breathing in the night air, he avoided looking at the glasses of alcohol that were circulating from hand to hand, from mouth to mouth. He was queasy. The director felt lulled by the conversation: he did not understand half of the words Jindosh uttered, but that deep voice was relaxing. The nephew of the Baroness had always appreciated the Grand Inventor for he was talkative and always mastered any word he used, arousing the admiration of the director and countering his bitterness for silence.

 

The operation lasted six long hours. Emily still smelled a vague stink of ether in the air. She did not see how Jindosh separated the patient’s legs and then combined the two pieces of the body. But she had heard some noises. The machine that kept the patient in an artificial coma, the bones that resisted under the blade, and at the end of the labor, the staples that had stuck in the skin. The girl would be in pain. Not immediately, still drugged with ether, but soon she would feel the muscles tighten, the bones get back together and the skin stick. The suffering she was going through would be Emily’s soon.

The heiress, terrified, would have liked her father or mother by her side, but she and Jindosh had received a letter explaining that their presence was necessary in Dunwall. Some serious event had happened and Emily had to face this surgery alone.

During the absence of the Grand Inventor, the young woman had to watch over the patient: the girl would spend her time sleeping but pain could wake her, in this case, Emily had nitrous oxide available to relieve the patient.

She had woken up once, two hours after Jindosh’s departure, and Emily had made her breathe gas. She did not know who this girl was, her name, her origin, and her tastes. Her crystal pupils reflected nothing except pain, fear and finally absence, carried away by the drug. With a feverish gesture, the siren had raised the blanket but she had seen nothing: a bandage surrounded the entire pelvis of the young woman. It was better this way.

Taking advantage of the calm, Emily had traveled the library behind Jindosh’s desk, letting her finger slip on the slices where the titles were embossed. She had found a book on the design of the mechanical soldiers and had her heart set on it: she could not explain her attachment to these metal birds. They had never attacked her and did not feel the same way as their victims. If Jindosh numbered them, Emily took pleasure in giving them names. But a new sob had interrupted her reading and Emily had to check the unfortunate girl.

When the creature looked up, she saw an intruder near her.

Billie had sheathed her weapon while admiring Emily. Some twisted taxidermists composed strange chimeras. Some crude mannequins associating rotting fish tails with wax figures. Billie had seen them at the freak show. But the silhouette of the mermaid was perfect: it was an unreal and captivating creation.

The intruder did not imagine finding the heiress here. It was curious to see her so peaceful, immersed in a book near a pool of water. What had Jindosh planned? Analyze her or help her? Breanna certainly did not foresee this situation either and the apprentice witch did not want to hurt Emily. It was not part of the plan. What should she do now? The witch did not care about the lunatic’s fate; she would be much more interested to know that the heiress, supposedly exiled, seemed to be spending happy evenings at the Clockwork Mansion.

Billie had made the decision to leave but she had also heard the tears and now the heiress was staring at her.

“Who are you?”

As she could not have something better, Emily armed her hair pike, ready to plant in the throat of the unknown. But rather than rush to her, Billie moved away to escape. She had the answers she wanted. Emily called the Clockwork Soldier and the bird reacted quickly. Bouncing upstairs, the golem broke his blades, missing Billie by little. The noise frightened the patient who screamed, mingled cries and tears.

Billie stepped over the rail and caught herself rolling on the glass floor just below. She met the frightened gaze of a blonde woman on a cot, deducing that she was the lunatic. In addition to her presence, Billie noted that two corridors were the only access to the laboratory: one of them had the curiosity to have no floor, so Billie saw a shortcut to escape. The soldier followed the same path and did not give her time to aim. Her grapple was still caught in the steel structures that were riveted to the ceiling and, thinking no more, Billie threw herself into the black nothingness, unrolling the grappling rope. Under her feet she could hear a winding river that ran up against stone walls, recognizing the sound of a waterfall at the end. And above her head, the bird had spread its sharp wing, ready to sever the thread that held her. Billie swung out of the pond to reach one of the steep facades. She did not want to fall into the night that had spread under the manor. Her fingers clung to the rough shapes of the stone when the cable was cut.

Despite everything she had gone through, all her crimes, Billie had never known that and she was shaking. Just like when she flew for the first time, just like when she killed for the first time. Clinging, she exhaled slowly, trying to regain control, muttering to herself that she had to calm down and think. Her pursuer had obviously abandoned its race, unable to detect her or presuming the intruder was dead. Carefully, Billie found a way to a safe bank, taking care not to slip.

Emily had a hard time calming the patient. Her words could not do anything, and the unfortunate woman was defending herself, refusing to let Emily put the mask on to put her to sleep. The overwrought siren gripped the patient and knocked her down with a squeeze on her throat. Her father had shown this technique but Emily had never practiced it for real. At the very moment when her victim sank into sleep, the heiress regretted her gesture and promised to be gentler in the future with this girl. But she was seething: the intrusion of this stranger worried her and she could not wait for Jindosh to come back. Suffering in silence, Emily waited for a few more hours.

 

When entering the laboratory, Jindosh noticed the grappling hook and the wire hanging in the middle of the corridor. But he mostly noticed that Emily was waiting for him in front of the steps, arms folded under her chest. She did not even greet him.

“What did you say? That your mansion’s perfectly protected? Your laboratory’s even more? Then how do you explain that?”

“A flaw in the system that I’ve to improve.”

“The fact that a woman has entered here doesn’t frighten you more?”

“The grapple was cut and she fell into the river in the middle of the night. Even if she survives, I don’t think she will want to come back.”

“She saw us, Jindosh. She saw the patient and she saw me. Whether a thief, a hitman or an adventurer doesn’t change anything: my condition will be known! You said that I was safe, that I’d nothing to fear, what would have happened if a witch had entered here?”

“No one knows you’re here, Lady Kaldwin, so no witch will kill you in your sleep.”

“There is one who knows, a woman maybe on the run has been added to the number of those who know where I’m.”

Jindosh shrugged and passed Emily, heading for his patient. The operation was too recent but as long as she was still alive, he could confirm his success. The blood had not gone through the bandage, which was a good sign. She would still be fragile when she returned to the Asylum of Karnaca, but the risks would have almost disappeared. Especially since it was a young woman rather quiet and docile.

Jindosh then noticed the marks on her throat.

“What is it?”

Emily did not want to answer right away. She was ashamed, but still angry.

“I couldn’t put the mask on her, your machine terrified her. So I stunned her with a hold. I know, I shouldn’t have done that, but I was still scared and I lost patience.”

“Direct your violence against intruders next time, Lady Kaldwin! If you try to ruin my experiences, I’ll never be able to help you.”

“Help me? So it’s your intention or you just want to accomplish something even bigger than your machines?”

Emily was ashamed: strangling this patient had relieved her anger, relieved her fear.

With Corvo Attano as his father, the heiress was skilled at the sword and knew how to fight, in addition to having the same reflexes of an outstanding assassin. But she was handicapped by her fishtail for too long: vulnerable, forced to rely on the abilities of the mechanical soldiers, she was only able to hurt a drugged young girl.

“I’m sorry, Jindosh. I shouldn’t have done that. I regretted the moment she fainted.”

She brought her wheelchair closer to the bed where the patient was resting. An unknown woman who was currently in a state of confusion, a field of pain, just to confirm whether the surgery was plausible or not, for the future empress to get along. If the experiment had failed, this poor soul would be dead.

“It doesn’t excuse my behavior, I know, but I was angry, angry because I could have defended myself—”

“Defend yourself?”

“You would be surprised by my abilities. I’m sure I can compete with your Clockwork Soldiers.”

Jindosh laughed.

“I’d like to challenge you, Lady Kaldwin, but I don’t like when my creations destroy each other: you won’t attack my soldiers and my soldiers won’t touch you either.”

He inspected the patient’s throat. The vital signs were reassuring. The heiress had only ‘asleep’ the unfortunate girl; still, the brutal method was quite questionable. The scientist’s gestures were precise, almost affectionate with his subject of study. If Jindosh showed the same tenderness to Emily when she was recovering, then she would be more confident.

“Having said that, you have to find a donor quickly. If this woman speaks, the reporters will come to harass you with questions, not to mention those who will be bold enough to pay us a visit.”

“Although I’m much less worried than you, I agree. I’ll go to clinics and hospitals tomorrow.”

Emily reminded him, however, that she maintained that she wanted a willing donor. The heiress lined the patient and readjusted the pillow under the blonde head before following the philosopher upstairs.

“Are you going to work long?”

“Yes. I have a few things to note and then I’ve to watch the patient’s condition. If the light bothers you, you can use my bedroom or bathroom, depending on whether you prefer to sleep in a bed or a bath.”

“No it’ll be fine. In fact, I had started reading your book, _The Astounding Clockwork Soldiers_.

“Ah! And you like it?”

“You scatter often but your writing is alive. You’re a very proud father.”

Emily placed her wheelchair near the desk to enjoy the light, starting the chapter she had tried to read. Jindosh did not expect the heiress to pick up books in his library, nor to appreciate the Clockwork Soldiers so much. Sometimes he heard her calling them by various names, not at all afraid of their skulls or gait. She would surely burst out laughing in chapter twenty-three when she read that the Inventor had been trying to make his machines more terrifying. Maybe he should rework his machines with her—

 

Claudia had just finished applying an ointment on Billie’s palms. Under the coolness of the dough, the black hands with torn palms began to shake. Reflexively, Billie blew on it: that was it or insult the whole universe including the Outsider.

“The wounds will close in a few hours and in three days; it will be nothing but a bad memory.

“I didn’t know we had this.”

“It’s an ointment only ready since this morning.”

The paste smelled stubbornly, but Billie was used to it. There were so many flowers in their nest that the walls had disappeared behind the stems and creepers. Some mornings, Billie woke up because of a leaf that was falling off; petals were coming down too often in her bath. Billie could have seen a romantic atmosphere if it was not so excessive and if her relationship with Claudia did not sink slowly, burying itself under the spring flowers.

While Claudia closed the jar of the ointment, Billie watched her cleavage: a strange shape nestled under the shirt of her friend. Without the slightest shyness, she pushed aside a piece of cloth and saw that stalks were twisting over her breast, sliding toward the shoulder, dressing the bare skin under the garment.

“What the—?!”

Disgusted, Billie stood up and stared at Claudia, waiting for an explanation.

“I was going to talk to you about it.”

“That you gave up lace to wear new underwear? The brambles don’t scratch your ass too much?”

Their relationship no longer sink: it was buried under this colorful garden.

“Billie, please.”

“That’s it, you became a witch.”

“When you went to the Clockwork Mansion, I talked to Breanna. I told her that you weren’t involved enough in her plans despite all your potential, which far exceeds that of some witches by the way. You could be an asset, Billie, but you refuse to bond with us. Breanna knows how much we love each other and she thought that if I passed the course, then you would follow more easily.”

Claudia stood up and unbuttoned her shirt. In removing her, she did not reveal her nakedness but a body of nymph where ivy wrapped her as it wraps a hundred-year-old trunk. The skin, formerly white like milk, was green, reminiscent of the shade of almonds. This livid swamp no longer reflected any brown star.

“To follow you easily how far? Until Breanna’s bed? Or better, Delilah’s?”

The witch sighed, the shirt still open.

“I wonder why you don’t like Delilah or Breanna, but I can understand. What I don’t understand is that we have lived a miserable life, running the streets and sleeping outside. Now thanks to these powers, we can definitively close this chapter. With these powers, we can dominate anyone. What you lived with Deirdre will never happen again.”

Billie did not answer: the leaden silence was enough for Claudia to understand that she did not have the right to pronounce that name. Deirdre was sacred, while Claudia had just plunged into infamy.

“Since you love Breanna so much, you’ll be the one to tell her what I found. Tell her I saw Kaldwin heiress at the Mansion.”

“What?!”

“I saw her in a wheelchair with her fishtail. Reading a book. A mermaid in a nursing home, that’s what Emily Kaldwin is today. I let you deduce whatever you want. For myself, I’ve nothing to do: the Grand Inventor can cook her to test a recipe or study for a next monograph, I don’t care anymore.”

Billie passed by the witch and slammed the door of the apartment. Climbing the stairs, she reached the roof. Nobody came here: it was her sanctuary where her pipe and her whiskey bottle were safe from indiscreet mouths. Putting one foot on the edge of the roof, preferring to look at the velvety ceiling of the world rather than the lights of Karnaca, Billie lighted her pipe and mixed the taste of tobacco with alcohol’s one from time to time. It was a taste for damaged freedom, as she liked to call it, because it was her ritual each time she became single again. Except for Deirdre: after her disappearance, the forced break had had a taste of salt for Billie.

 

Every time Emily saw the marks on the throat, her shame was revived. She had taken care of the sleeping girl all day and had agreed to change her bandage, then discovering the cut that was about ten centimeters below the navel. With a piece of cotton, she had cleaned the staples, taking care to not reopen the wound with too abrupt gestures. Tomorrow, the patient could get up and would go back to the hospital.

She had asked Jindosh if he knew her name, if she had a family, but he could not answer her. How was the asylum? Did she occupy a room alone or were there more to sleep in the same room? Unlike Jindosh, who only saw a subject for experimentation, Emily saw a person with a story, a past. And she was counting on redeeming herself so she would not see that glimmer of fear in the pale irises again.

“You spend a lot of time at her bedside.” Jindosh observed as he opened the latest edition of the Silver Spike.

He had returned from his explorations empty-handed: dispensaries, prisons and morgues unfortunately had no adequate body. As Grand Inventor, Jindosh had no trouble booking potential bodies. But the surgery was still postponed for the moment and, sitting on the edge of a table, he ran through the newspapers to spot an upcoming execution or a news item with a young victim.

“Do you still feel guilty?”

“I do.”

The bandage was knotted again and Emily replaced the blanket over the sleeping body. Jindosh did not look up from the news but heard the wheelchair approach. He knew that Emily was almost six feet tall, but he could hardly imagine the young woman with her initial height, accustomed to staring at her from above. Dismantling the tools that littered the piece of furniture, he helped the mermaid to sit beside him. When Emily was sitting next to him, Jindosh totally ignored the fishtail and saw her as she was: a young woman who was trying to associate her mischievous nature with her royal title.

The portraits of the heiress omitted the two moles she had at the top of the cheekbone, drawing gaze to her brown, almost black eyes. Jessamine Kaldwin was a worthy empress with her iris that reflected the gray sky of Dunwall, but Emily had received her father’s pupils, gathering warm shadows in the back of her eyes.

She was also more severe than her mother, although her jaw was softened by a generous mouth, the only touch of voluptuous femininity because Emily’s whole body was nervous, gnarled. She was a woman in all length, finesse and firmness.

“You’re still mad at me?” Emily asked, noting that Jindosh had not yet reopened the newspaper, moving aback in case the Inventor was still upset. She remembered his anger and, if she had not been intimidated, it was the first time he had clearly displayed his annoyance. Usually, he was barely bothered by her tendency to disobey him, but she had damaged what he had done, she had hindered a project and he was angry. The siren did not know if this feeling was tenacious in Jindosh or not.

“Is it really important?”

“Yes, it is.”

Jindosh smiled, staring at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Answer me instead of looking at me like that.”

“I don’t look at you anymore, then.” Jindosh replied, reopening the newspaper. Emily took the Silver Spike from his hands and kept the item for her.

“Answer me. Are you still mad at me?”

“Lady Kaldwin, I’m trying to find you a donator but as usual, you poorly choose your time to discuss futile things.”

“These aren’t futile things. Your answer matters, Jindosh, so answer me.”

Jindosh got up and picked up the newspaper, knowing that the siren could not follow him if he walked away a bit. Yet he did not know the creature well: as he moved away from the furniture, Emily grabbed his arm and held him back. She possessed a surprising strength and she destabilized him. A bit more and she would have left her perch and clung to his leg. The inventor gave up.

“I’m not mad at you, your gesture didn’t have any unfortunate consequences and that’s the main thing. Why is my opinion so important to you?”

“It’s a habit of future empress who has an image to build, I suppose. There’re many habits that I will have to go back to not look like a savage at the court.”

“Like not bathing in the fountains of the Dunwall Tower?”

Jindosh took his place and opened the newspaper so that Emily could also browse the articles of the day, but the young woman laughed.

“As long as nobody sees me, I can bath where I want.”

However, she became serious again and, over the shoulder of the Inventor, she read the columns without finding the slightest opportunity.

“Young six feet tall criminals are pretty rare in Karnaca, I guess.”

“It doesn’t matter, Lady Kaldwin: I didn’t expect to find much in the papers. But one of the city’s dispensaries may soon have someone to offer you her legs.”

And the scientist was not wrong. While Amos Finch found her patient and learnt Jindosh’s instructions before inviting him to empty a glass of whiskey at the top of the asylum, south of the city, close to the beaches, a young fish seller has been injured, the back of her head hit by a boom. A common accident but also fatal. The cranial wounds were still bleeding plentifully, but the wound was deep and the doctor had little hope.

Tall and thin, perhaps because of a regime imposed by poverty, the victim was an orphan. The doctor gave Jindosh further information, assuring that she was usually a healthy woman, gradually presenting the perfect candidate for the surgery.

Jindosh explained it to the mermaid who was listening attentively, frowning.

“Her condition will be fixed tomorrow morning. If that person dies, I will pay a sum to the doctor and I can recover the body, then we will start your surgery.”

“You think she won’t survive?”

“I saw her skull, Lady Kaldwin, and the bone is totally broken. The after-effects will be heavy if she survives.”

He knew that the young woman would not jump with joy, much more sensitive than him, but she was curiously pensive.

“I don’t have her consent, it’s true, but we can’t wait and interview another potential donor, it would be too long and you said it yourself: the operation becomes urgent.”

“It may be my last night as a mermaid—”

The creature spread out her fish tail and watched as the light glided over the scales, how the fin suffered the laws of gravity while in the water it floated like a marine ghost.

“I— I’d like to spend one last evening in the sea, Jindosh. I’m tired of being a chimera, even if you want me to stay this way, and I can’t wait to become completely human again. But I would like to enjoy a last evening in the sea with this body.”

“You’re more sentimental than you would like to recognize, Lady Kaldwin.”

“I could be easily moved to tears but that’s not the case, consider yourself happy.”

They had waited for the sky to darken a little more. Jindosh first thought of places far away from Karnaca but the trip would have been longer. Then he remembered the deserted and rocky beaches under the duke Abele’s mansion he had seen during visits to the Grand Palace, rough corners that did not attract the least visitor. In her wanderings, Emily had already skirted the coast where the Grand Palace stood, but she had never stopped too long. There, the mermaid could enjoy her last night before becoming the human that the court was waiting for.

The siren was eager for the cover to be removed from the cylinder where she was because she had not forgotten how beautiful the place was. The clouds were lightened by the twilight, imitating burning cotton. From the creek, the naiad saw the giant lanterns flying over the geometric lines of the Grand Palace. The Clockwork Soldier knelt and stood still while Jindosh helped Emily to get out of her cage: after drying herself and putting on a jacket, the mermaid wrapped her arms around Jindosh’s neck and let him bring her to the shore.

The rough skin of the stones kept the warmth it had drenched all day long, warming the water around them. When she was seated near the edge, Emily quickly removed her garment and hairpin before jumping into the waves, containing a shout of excitement. The salt, the current, the foam: she found all these familiar elements and played with the curves of the sea, undulating under the surface broken by the last rays.

Jindosh had never seen her swim that way. Quick, the mermaid became one with the maritime hugs, disappearing into the depths then resurface to kiss the sky in an aspiration. She had a radiant smile. Sitting on a rock, he could watch her all day.

 “Admit it, you’re jealous because you can’t swim!” Emily said, getting closer to the edge, getting closer to him.

“I’m not fond of midnight dips. And then, I prefer to watch you, even if the more I see, the more I regret the idea to operate you. The human body is a fascinating enigma, a complex machine, but you are— it’s beyond words.”

Emily did not know if a shiver had run through her back or if the current had suddenly become colder.

“Beyond words? Try anyway. You’re a genius: nothing is impossible for you.”

“I would have said ‘outstanding’ but it’s still too weak.”

 _Outstanding_.

The mermaid leaned on the rocky shore, leaving her bath. She had read a hundred tales in which the mystical creature charmed the mortal by stealing a kiss. But she was not a mystical creature and Jindosh was not a mere mortal. Yet she was outstanding.

It was her last night as a naiad. Her legend would soon come to an end, as well give a good conclusion to this story before writing a new one.

Her body slid carefully over the hot stones. Static, Jindosh let her get closer, guessing her intentions. Taking care not to rush or soak him, Emily knelt down. Then she gently lifted his face and leaned down to kiss his. Her lips had a taste of salt, covered with wild moisture. Emily was longing for Jindosh’s hands on her: she was hoping for a rustle on her back or around her waist, but he did not move. Audacious, she slid her palms from the Inventor’s throat to his chest, inviting him to follow her gestures to compose a hug.

Finally, he put his hands on her shoulders to push her gently.

“I think there’s a misunderstanding, Lady Kaldwin.”

Emily eyed him, feeling her heart stop.

“My words were ambiguous, I admit it, but I spoke of you as a case study.”

The siren was only a subject, a marvel in his laboratory. She pulled away from the man, confused. Emily thought of her dignity first and instead of confronting Jindosh, she preferred to turn her back on him.

“Excuse me, Jindosh. Of course. What was I thinking?”

The creature observed the horizon becoming darker and darker. The sky was clear and it was still hot. Yet she was cold, now she knew it.

“It’s I who apologize to you, I didn’t think my words would mislead you. The situation was clear on my side since you are a mermaid. A hybrid creature.”

“I know.”

Emily had forgotten that tales had no place for rational minds. She had taken observations for compliments, looks for glances, a scientific fascination for a beginning of love. Once she had legs again, she would lose interest.

“Your attitude towards me was sometimes strange. I thought you— that you were somehow attracted.”

“I’m. I feel strong feelings for you: for the creature to study but not for the woman that you are in fact. The emotions that an inventor feels for a discovery or a subject of study make us forget food, sleep, family, love. All.”

“Is this your way of telling me that I mustn’t feel hurt or upset?”

“It’s my way of clarifying our relationship. But know that inventors have no time for married life, Lady Kaldwin, it’s not something we think about.”

“I’m going to end up wondering who is the most inhuman of us, Jindosh.”

She was trying to be funny and she heard him laugh without malice. Jindosh had already experienced this situation in a corner of a living room at a reception, on a balcony at a party. Women with heavy jewelry had made advances to him, handing hands laden with expensive rings to emphasize their fortune and their social standing, but when the Inventor rebuffed them with a frank smile, they lost all prestige: sometimes they cried, sometimes they insulted him.

He was glad to see that Emily was still proud: no tears, no anger. She was dominating herself, pretending to admire the colors left by the sun now lying. Of modest origin and despite his pride, Jindosh would never have imagined attracting the affection of a future empress, a young woman with a noble spirit and rank.

“I guess you didn’t kiss me just to please me. May I ask you what you like about me?”

She loved his voice, that deep, unperturbed voice. She loved his way of thinking, his contempt for ignorance and his arrogance that ran up against the aristocracy. Very few men would have reacted like him who had not hesitated to repel her, the future empress. Curiously, his refusal accentuated her attraction for this honest man and difficult to impress. And then she remembered all those times where he had carried her, touched her: he was careful and was delicate, masking a force she wanted to discover.

But Emily could not find the words and, in any case, refused to confess what she loved so much. Plunging her tail in the water, the siren prepared to return to the waves.

“Meditate the question since you’re the scientist. For my part, I can’t explain it.”

“That’s the problem with affection. Nobody can explain the sources of these chemical and physical reactions.”

“Inventors don’t have time for married life, do they? Why would you want to know?”

“Because I’m really flattered, Lady Emily.”

“Proud as you are, it’s not surprising, Jindosh.”

Despite the embarrassment that passed with difficulty, she laughed with him.

“You know that I can’t resist mysteries. Even after your surgery, I’ll still have to study you to understand the enigma you are.”

“You’ll operate on me, Jindosh, yes, but you can study me as long as you like, I’ll continue to escape your understanding.”

And to support her point, she slipped into the water and swam to the bottom to not hear his answer. She had noticed that he had called her with her first name. Maybe it had escaped him. He seemed to like cultivating a certain ambiguity with the young woman.

When the night had completely fallen and the mermaid was quite satisfied with her bathing, he helped her out of the water, carrying her to the cylinder even if she could do without his help. The Inventor claimed to be inaccessible but seemed to want to be close to her at the same time, so Emily accepted every gesture, every approach. The young woman could be satisfied with these few marks of attention, happy that her daring did not destroy their bond. And when she returned to Dunwall she would try to forget him.

 

Her last night as a mermaid passed and her last morning arrived. To avoid any accident during the operation, Emily could not eat, which was not too bad since her stomach was suffering, making a sip of water difficult to swallow.

And then the body arrived. The fish seller had not survived the boat accident. Inert and heavy, the legs would move yet again in a few hours. As Jindosh paid and thanked the men sent by the doctor, Emily was getting ready in the lab. She stared at the lower part of her anatomy, worried and excited. It had been a long time since she had stopped imagining herself with legs. But thanks to Jindosh, she might be human again.

Her surgeon arrived at the laboratory with a cart on which the body was resting. Emily appreciated that it was covered with a sheet and understood that Jindosh had had this attention for her.

“Don’t stare at the cart, Lady Kaldwin. Lie down and breathe deeply.”

The siren obeyed and looked at the ceiling where the metal structures under the dome reminded her of a spider’s web. She would have liked to see the sky and not the opaque dome that choked her, preventing her from breathing.

“Jindosh, would you agree to hold my hand for a moment?”

Without answering, he left the dead woman and approached the living one, acceding to her request. His fingers mingled with Emily’s ones, forming a close and strong union. Emily closed her eyes as she exhaled, before Jindosh’s other hand pulling a few strands from her forehead. She froze then, surprised by this caress but refused to open her eyelids.

She tightened her fingers as Jindosh’s mouth touched hers as he also held on the grip of their hands, communicating with pressure. In a moment, Emily forgot the body a few meters away, the ceiling that imitated a spider’s web, the deep sleep in which she would soon plunge. She spread her lips slightly and he followed her movements for long seconds, playing with her tongue. Emily did not need to hold his hand anymore: she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to snuggle against her.

Her eyes only opened when their kiss came to an end. Although perplexed, the young woman felt much better.

“Why did you have—?”

“An orgasm could be useful as your hypophysis would secrete endorphins and a desire to sleep would suddenly take you, but the anesthesia will take care of it.” Jindosh explained. “We’re going to do with the dopamine produced to relax, I guess it worked?”

“The confusion works well too, Jindosh, thank you. You didn’t have to be so ambiguous _again_.”

The surgeon put the mask on the face of the creature.

“No need to talk or to get mad, Lady Kaldwin, you’re going to ruin the effects. Now breathe. And trust me.”

She tried to send him a cynical answer but he did not hear anything, the mask changed the sounds. And as the young woman sank into an involuntary sleep, Jindosh removed the blanket that hid the corpse and began cutting the skin.

The surgery began.

 

There were no stars in this sky. The only lights came from drifting lampposts, attached to wandering bridges. The world looked like an immense shipwreck where even prospect was in pieces, gravity torn apart. Ice cold, Emily tried to rub her arms but nothing happened. Where were her hands? Where was her body?

Above these solitary hulls, the whales passed, impassible. She heard them. The siren had known their singing for so long. Even in this empty world where no one could hurt them, they seemed so sad. Inspired by their lazy swimming, Emily tried to move as she did in the ocean.

“What a strange place—”

The horizon began to distort and particles, black as coal, flew as if pushed by a non-existent breeze. They drew the appearance of a boy whose dark circles were so dark that they accentuated the size of his black eyes. In contrast, the teeth that unfolded under an absent smile were bright.

“Not as strange as you, Emily Kaldwin. Daughter of Corvo Attano, future Empress of the Empire of the Isles. And mermaid in this world.”

The man fluttered to reappear behind her, whispering in the hollow of her ear.

“Did you understand their songs?”

Emily turned around but the stranger had disappeared again. Instead, she saw seven majestic whales and their lamentations formed a unique echo in this white infinity, not reverberating against anything.

“No. You listen without understanding them, fascinated but unable to grasp their meaning. Just like him with the mysteries of attraction.”

The melancholy of the sea creatures matched the Outsider’s dark eyes, pouring a starless night into that face so youthful and ancient.

“Listen to them. They tell how the air has drowned.”

“Him?”

“You fascinate him as he fascinates you. Just like in another world. Attraction is a curious phenomenon: it pushes away or moves closer. In any case, it’s powerful.”

The Outsider’s voice was divided, as if several people were murmuring at the same time. He invited Emily to move on, to explore, but she immediately regretted following this suggestion. Behind a blue slate wall, a frozen scene had risen from nothingness. Emily saw herself on an operating table, the trunk separated from the fishtail and Jindosh, blood to the elbows, joined her with new legs, ready to sew the organs.

“In a life you don’t know and never will you’re both opponents. He wanting your death, you wanting his. The feelings are strong but different. And yet here he is, taking care of you, watching for any sign to keep you alive.”

“He have to. After all: my death would sign his.”

Once again, the Outsider smiled without conviction: the sadness of his eyes contradicted his expression.

“The attraction in death. Once again. But the end doesn’t frighten him, he amuses himself with it.”

The boy approached the stage and his hand, moon color, flew over the abandoned fishtail. Her old legs forever metamorphosed.

“You lost your connection with the sea, but it left salty tears on your skin for a last farewell. You won’t forget it. And he will discover them soon, because he was fascinated by the siren and he’s in love with the woman.”

“If you’re the Outsider, are you really telling the truth?”

“If you’re Emily Kaldwin, can you really believe?”

The childish demon amused himself, malice becoming innocence, mockery becoming thoughts. The song of the whales gradually became deafening, occupying all the space. For a minute, Emily thought she understood their meaning. But she was not sure.

 

Her eyelids were so heavy, as tired to exist. Emily was still confused but she managed to recognize the laboratory. She was not hurt, but something was bothering her: her flesh was cotton, her bones had disappeared, and she could see like she was under water. Maybe she had not quite left the Void, if she had met the Outsider though, but when she woke up she would suspect a hallucination caused by anesthesia.

While stirring her fingers, Emily felt that a hand held hers and this contact pushed her to wake up completely. Jindosh was there and his smile was unequivocal. It was his hand that was gripping hers. Emily took off her head from the cushion where she was resting and looked to her feet. Feet, yes. Feet that ended two long legs all white, consisting of shins, calves, knees, thighs. It was as simple as that, and yet that vision seemed so unreal.

Emily had legs.

She tried to speak but her lips were shaking too much. Her head fell back on the cushion and she began to cry without knowing where this strength came from to express her joy.

 

“Corvo! _Corvo_!”

The Empress Jessamine Kaldwin was known for her coolness, always thinking before acting. Her screams were rare and Corvo did not immediately recognize the voice he had listened to for thirty years. She ran on the ramparts, a paper in her hands. Emotion choked her and when she joined her lover, Jessamine tried to catch her breath like a survivor of the sea.

“Corvo—”

She handed him what she was holding. Corvo first thought it was a letter but it was a silvergraph. A silvergraph of his daughter. Emily was partially turned away on a chair, her hands on her knees, a cane nearby, a tired smile on her face. And Jindosh by his side, proud, as presenting his most beautiful work.

Jessamine knew that his love had the rough temper of the Serkonians: in their eyes as dry as their climate, tears had no place. However, she saw how Corvo was moved and at the corner of the eyelid, a veil of moisture began to spread.

“Jindosh has succeeded.”


	6. C H A P T E R 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /!\ THAT CHAPTER WASN'T BETA-READED. /!\  
> I'm a French native/speaker/writer, I always translate my fic myself then ask for a beta-reading. I wrote two more chapters in French and my beta-reader is a bit busy nowadays and I never push the nice people who agreed to correct my mistakes.
> 
> As it has been 10 days since the last chapter and I write a bit too fast (and like to keep a regular pace) (and I finished my thesis, AH), so I give you the unbeta-readed (?) chapter 5.
> 
> So read at your own risk or wait a bit~ ♥  
> (I guess it's still better than reading the French version with google translate, ahah)

Jessamine Kaldwin stood at the front of the deck. By clinging to the gunwale, the Empress imagined reducing the distance that separated her from her daughter, annihilating every centimeter that dared to stand between her and Emily. To resist the morning breeze, she tightened her long coat around her waist while readjusting the scarf that had slipped down her nose. The cloth hid the lower part of her face again, covering the scar on her cheek at the same time. Under the coat, there were rich but sober clothes without any ornament, just fine embroidery on the collar and the sleeves. So the Empress could be taken for any Dunwall noble.

“Jessamine, we won’t arrive before hours.”

As usual, Corvo wore a simple outfit, but he had removed all the distinctive signs attached to his title of Royal Protector, leaving at Dunwall the medals and cufflinks with his initials. With much more regret, he had replaced at his belt his faithful sword for another more discreet.

“It doesn’t matter, Corvo.” Jessamine said, gesturing vaguely. She knew that after sixteen months it would be the longest hours, but before tonight they would have seen their daughter again.

Jessamine was not caring about the witches anymore and had booked a ship for the first hour after receiving the silvergraph. The mail had to take three days to travel between Karnaca and the Dunwall Tower, and the picture showed Emily tired but looked fine, so Jessamine could calculate four more days. It had been about seven days since her daughter had become human again.

To fill the hollow in her heart, Jessamine extirpated the silvergraph from her pocket and put her eyes on Emily’s gaze, frozen but real.

“She looks happy despite everything that has happened to her.” observed the mother. “Happy and so much more mature.”

“That’s true.”

“We missed her twenty-fourth birthday.”

Corvo wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist and rested his head on her shoulder, looking at the portrait of their daughter.

“I didn’t think Jindosh would succeed. Prostheses, well, I could imagine, but the transplant—”

“When I received the letter where he mentioned it for the first time, I admit I had a hard time believing it too. And yet— I wonder from whom the legs come.”

Recalling Sokolov’s warnings, Corvo remained silent. He did not know how far the Inventor had been to help the heiress, but it did not matter at all. He himself would have killed the first young woman so that Emily could be complete again, for she could return to Dunwall. In fact, he could kill anyone for the two women of his life.

Corvo kissed Jessamine’s neck, suppressing a thrill at the thought of losing her, for this quiet woman was her light. Without her, he could switch into chaos, flowing to the wild lands of the human soul. From that, he was sure of it.

Behind them, a violinist tried her instrument, rubbing the strings to evaluate the sounds, while her companion tuned his guitar with precise gestures. When the two musicians began to play, Corvo immediately recognized the first chords of _Jewel of the South_ , a ballad about Karnaca, which perfectly accompanied the coast of the island that the boat was skirting.

Jessamine put away the silvergraph and listened, seduced by the association of the voices of the singers: she had a voice made for loving sighs and he had a voice made for dark secrets.

“Do all the men of Karnaca have such sensual voices?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, so beware, dear Royal Protector, you have to monitor me closely or I may follow any charmer on your island.”

Corvo laughed, assuring her she would have her shadow and her Protector to follow her anywhere. Jessamine faced him: her cheekbones rose, betraying a radiant smile under the scarf.

“How far would you follow me?”

“At the end of the world?”

“You’re no longer twenty, you pretentious man, don’t go that far.”

She placed her hands in his and even before they noticed it, they swayed to the rhythm of the music, charmed by the melody.

"I don’t need to drag you away to the end of the world. A small house in Karnaca, just the two of us, at seventy; enjoying the sun in a garden where hedges would hide us from prying eyes. That would be enough for me.

“Your skin’s so white, you would burn.”

“Then you’ll have to hide me with hugs.”

“Like this?”, Corvo suggested, moving his body closer to her.

“That’s what I had in mind. What other dangers are in Karnaca?”

“There’s a passionate lover who makes your life impossible but I think it’s too late: he already knows the way to follow you to Dunwall if you try to run away.”

“Oh, what a boor!” exclaimed Jessamine with a frank laugh, then she wrapped her arms around the shoulders of her ‘passionate lover’. They stayed like that for long moments, rocked by the waves, lulled by the music. Jessamine dreamed of being able to leave her throne after so many years of reign, to abandon the court attire, to abandon the political protocols and leave, go to this island of light that she governed without knowing it, and discover the places that had marked Corvo’s childhood, discover the landscapes he had seen.

“I sometimes wonder if I would not be the first Empress to retire.”

“You forget Emily—”

“Of course not: I didn’t say that I will retire tomorrow.”

“Even in twenty-five years, she’ll track us down in the silver mines for help.” Both parents continued to laugh, aware for a long time that Emily was too mischievous to sit quietly on the throne. It would take a few more years before the heiress finally accepts her title and becomes an empress worthy of the name.

While the Serkonian duo, touched by the only dancing couple, went on to another piece, the two bodies were still hugging each other.

 

Legs shaking, her knees barely relaxed and her back curved, Emily clutched Jindosh’s hands as she struggled to stand up.

“Don’t force, Lady Kaldwin, it’s out of the question for me to operate you again just because you haven’t taken enough precautions.”, the inventor sighed, but the young woman persisted.

She had spent the last three days lying down, leaving her bed only by necessity. Three endless nights of searching for sleep and three infinite days inspecting Jindosh’s room. When the Inventor had installed her in the private part of the mansion, she had asked him why his first subject had not had the same privilege. Jindosh had then exposed two reasons: first, she already knew the place because her previous escapades, then, as an heiress, she was more accustomed to luxury than the lunatic who had only known more modest places. Emily had accepted these explanations, wondering if in reality this opportunity did not hide a preferential treatment. She was still uncertain about her meeting with the black-eyed boy: had she met the Outsider or was it a hallucination caused by anesthesia? And even though she had really wandered in the Void, the Outsider was known to be cunning and manipulative. With distant echoes, he spoke of attraction, even of love. But the inventors had no time for married life, Emily was aware of it.

“That’s enough, you have to rest now.”

Emily was tired of lying down: she knew by heart the curves of the fences at the windows, the pattern of the wallpaper above her head where she had counted the nerves of each golden leaf represented, she had counted all the slats of the floor, those that she saw at least, noticing all the shades of brown. But the patient could not protest.

Reaching back to the bed, Emily managed to sit on the edge of the mattress, still trembling. Her exercise, brief but intense, had awakened pain in the lower back.

“Do you think I could move as before soon?”

“Not before long months. Give your organs time to heal, just like your skin. Not to mention your muscles that will recover.”

“And the bones?”

“Osteosynthesis.”

“Excuse me?”

“I used screws to keep your skeleton to help it to knit.”

“I’ve bits of metal in my body?”

“They will not stay indefinitely: I’ll remove them when you’re almost cured because you’ll not need them anymore. As you’re young, you should recover quickly enough, especially since you’ve an excellent constitution: you recover faster than I would have thought. There’s just one thing I’m not sure I’ve mastered yet—”

Emily touched the bandage extended from her hips to her thighs. She only wore one undergarment over the white stripe, a pair of trousers would bother her and she was still struggling to get dressed on her own.

“You told me that your menstrual cycle was like “on a break”, right?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll see with time if this break is definitive or not.”

“Do you think I became sterile?”

“Apparently there was a trauma. I would say that you are sterile for the moment, yes.”

At this answer, Jindosh noticed the shock of the young woman. With a reflex, she put both hands on her lower abdomen and froze. The heiress had never seriously thought about children: as a noble and future empress, it was obvious that she should have heirs too. And now that she was close to the loss of her fertility, she was measuring the social drama and the pain it caused her.

“Does this news upset you so much?”

The detached tone of the Inventor contrasted with the torment in which Emily had plunged.

“Have you forgotten that I’m a Kaldwin? A woman who has to maintain a lineage? More than a desire to found a family, it is an obligation, a duty.”

“I haven’t forgotten that you’ve been transformed into a mystical creature and for sixteen long months you’ve survived in the sea with a fishtail, so forgive me if I find the infertility less impressive.”

“My transformation is unknown and will remain so, but if the future Empress can’t have an heir, imagine the scandal. And then it would be a great opportunity for Delilah’s supporters.”

“Those who support Delilah met before you became a mermaid, finding opportunities. How many empresses had illegitimate children? How many barren nobles have found a way to secure their lineage by adopting children of maidens or cooks? You’re the future empress, learn to lie and play with the codes that are imposed on you.”

“I can’t. It isn’t because I’m noble that I’m by definition a liar or a hypocrite.”

“Yes, I already noticed your frankness. Unfortunately, you’ll learn and you’ll forget this quality.”

“No, I won’t.”

To her surprise, Jindosh laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was thinking— If only there were more nobles like you. I wish you to never be sneaky, but I doubt that is possible.”

He sincerely appreciated Emily’s outspokenness. Opinions pointed to the Grand Inventor as apolitical or too concerned about his research to care about the government, yet the more he thought about it and the happier he would be to see Emily Kaldwin as the future empress, because in addition to her sometimes brutal honesty, the young woman gave an important place to science. Certainly she had a mind that Jindosh would find mediocre in normal times, but she was curious, insightful. And malicious.

“If there were more people like you, Jindosh, it would be easier. People who appreciate sincerity.”, feeling sentimental, Emily continued quickly: “Though you’re already too much. And you’re so narcissistic, you wouldn’t stand yourself.”

They continued to talk about each other’s faults, just to be able to bury the compliments and make them forget in laughter, without much success.

As long as Jindosh stayed, the wait was more bearable. And when he yearned too much for his laboratory, Emily enjoyed a dreamless sleep to rest. Pains tugged at times and each awakening led her to admire a new light in the room. The white glow of midday, the light of the afternoon, the honey beams of the sunset and finally, the face of her mother.

Emily thought at first of a dream, but as her eyelids opened, Jessamine’s smile widened.

“Hello, Emily.”

Totally mute, the girl tried to articulate something but was unable to. She held out her hands to that figure she had missed so much. The Empress sat down on the edge of the bed and kissed Emily’s forehead with a sweet maternal touch. The young woman’s hair was loose and spilled on the pillow: Jessamine grabbed a wick and tied it around her finger as if to consolidate a link finally rebuilt.

Then the mother moved away slightly and Corvo, confused, stepped forward. This arid man, this timid father was not able to find his words, accustomed to contain his emotions. He could not believe that day had arrived. Taking a seat on the other side of the bed, he stroked Emily’s cheek, making sure she was real. That she was alive.

“Finally we find you again.”

A feeling of security filled the young woman when her father put his callous hand on hers. The expression she had did not escape Jindosh who went away, leaving the family to meet. Lighting a cigarette, he fought back a feeling of jealousy: rejected by his own mother and misunderstood by his brother, Jindosh no longer saw any value in the word ‘family’ and attending the reunion of the Kaldwins reinforced this antipathy. Settling into the adjoining living room, he waited, puffing smoke that softened the bitterness of his feelings, soothing his rancor.

Five minutes later, Corvo came out of the room, gently closing the door. He let the emotions shut in him and regained his role as Royal Protector. Despite Jindosh’s mistrust of their first meeting, Corvo shook his hand gratefully.

“Lady Kaldwin explained us the situation: from whom the legs are, the sequelae that may harm her— You told her she would recover quickly. Do you have a rough idea of how long it will take before her return to Dunwall?”

“I would say a good month. But even after her return, rest will be essential and Lady Kaldwin won’t be able to resume her activities right away. I understand that she was training in combat with you?”

“That’s true. I’ll try to postpone the sessions but you already know her nature, don’t you? It’ll be difficult to convince her.”

The inventor nodded, having noticed how much the heiress was reluctant to immobility.

“She’ll stay here for a while, then,” Corvo observed. “I won’t be worried: despite the fatigue, I see that she’s delighted.”

“Lady Kaldwin couldn’t stand being a mermaid anymore: having legs again must fill her with joy.”

“No, I mean she seems to be feeling good. She told us about you, that you were trustworthy.”

Jindosh could not repress a smile: how would the Royal Protector react if he learned that the Inventor and his daughter, who were almost ten years apart, had kissed twice? He was tempted to confess this misbehavior to the father just for the sake of shocking, but his interlocutor went on:

“That reassures me because I’ve to tell you something: about two weeks ago, witches came to Dunwall. They had organized an attack to free Delilah Copperspoon. The guard captured one for interrogation; the others were killed or fled, but the prisoner committed suicide, so I’ve absolutely no information on this last remaining core of witches. So protect Emi— Lady Kaldwin at all costs.

“You don’t even have to ask.”

Corvo would have liked to stay and ensure the protection of his daughter himself, but Jindosh seemed to live in a fortress and this fact took away a weight from his heart. In addition, Emily had explained how much the Inventor cared about his works: touching Emily was like touching his creation.

The young woman’s parents stayed another hour, no more for they could not miss the boat that would bring them back to Dunwall. Lost between hope and sadness, the girl, mother and father felt torn apart, praying for time to slow down for tonight, praying for time to accelerate until Emily’s full recovery. Then it was their departure.

Although she was exhausted, Emily asked Jindosh to help her get into the wheelchair. Wheelchair she was eager to leave, impatient for the day when she would be released from these rigid armrests, this wooden backrest. A feeling of grief choked her and she rolled over to the balcony for a better breath. Taken of melancholy, she focused on the landscape, saw the sea and looked for the boats: the one with her parents had not left the port yet, but the young woman watched them all the same.

“The sun is setting, Lady Kaldwin, if you’re going to sleep here, can I close the shutters right away?”

“Why do you need to be so rude, Jindosh? Especially now?”

“You’ve new legs, you’ve just seen your family back in support and look at you, look at your state. Where were you exactly one year ago? Hidden in a cave like an animal, ready to steal fishermen to be able to eat, to wait for your parents to find a solution with old Sokolov. You go from one extreme to another and yet, in both situations, you mope around.”

“I don’t mope, I’m just— I wish my parents could stay longer.”

Emily moved away from the guardrail to face him. While the shadows swallowed the horizon, an animosity swallowed the face of the heiress.

“You’re a genius, Jindosh, I admit it, but in terms of social relations, you’re a complete jerk.”

“Because social relations doesn’t matter to me.”

“You wish it was true.”

Surprised, he stared at her.

“Really, you impress me, Lady Kaldwin: we know each other since when? Three weeks? And obviously, you know me so _much_ better than myself.” replied the Inventor with ironic reverence. “Please, spread out your science, your deductions! Go for it! Maybe you’ll be the next doctor at the Asylum?”

“Do you have a family, Jindosh?”

Without answering, he crossed his arms, so Emily continued, her voice distorted by anger:

“We’ve known each other for three weeks: we’re discussing science, experiments, machines, and I’ve noticed how talkative you’re and how much you like talking about yourself. And yet, did you mention once your family or your childhood? Not even once. Throughout the walls of this mansion, there’re silvergraphs of Karnaca with strangers, but no members of your family are on it. None.”

“Anything else ?”

The inventor persisted in cold impassiveness, accentuating the irritation of the young woman:

“Yes, your bullshit about inventors who don’t have time for married life.”

“I suspected you were upset by that.”

“Don’t mix everything. I was not upset, but disappointed that a man of your intelligence could really believe what he was saying. You want to stay in a scientific spirit? Fine. Philosophy itself recognizes that there’s a connection between objects: the stars form a whole, organisms form a whole, and the body forms a whole. Philosophy also recognizes a connection between individuals, though some are more gregarious than others, and you _know_ it.” The blood, heated by the fire in the hollow of her chest, beat at her temples. Some of her roots were after all planted in Serkonos and Emily shared the passionate temperament of the islanders: intense in love, impetuous in anger. “You’re trying to convince yourself that an inventor doesn’t have time for a married life, no, in fact, for any social life. An inventor can get rid of all links? It’s wrong. And you know it _too_.”

When the heiress finished her tirade, she took a deep breath to calm herself down.

“I hate your name.” Jindosh said with a clear but cold voice.

“Excuse me?”

“Emily. It looks like the name of my older brother, Emil.”

The young woman finally had her answer: Emil was Kirin’s eldest.

“Why do you hate these names?”

“He’s the one who raised me. Well, ‘raise’— It’s a little exaggerated since the minor role he had.”

“You weren’t raised by your parents?”

“I always terrified my mother.”

As Jindosh spoke, using unusually short sentences, he stepped back into the room, stepping back into the shadows. His arms were still crossed and his jaw was clenched to resist an old anger. Or an old pain. Emily, meanwhile, had totally softened and let him talk, encouraging him to tell her more.

“My mother is a stupid woman, just like my brother. They never tried to learn anything, whereas I, on the contrary, wanted to understand everything and know everything. They interpreted my childhood curiosity for a perversion of the mind, a tendency that had to be muzzled.”

“What was wrong with that?”

“Indeed, what was the harm in asking why the day succeeds the night? Why does the body get older? Why do some animals breathe underwater when others can fly? I was never answered. So I looked for the answers myself. At eight, I dissected the cat just to see what it was made of.”

Emily was taken aback: she did not expect this admission, but she slowly learned to know Jindosh and imagined him easily, even at eight, to conduct experiments. There were children more cruel than others, and there were children more curious than others.

“At this moment, my mother started rejecting me. She thought I did that to harm her, when it was out of scientific interest. People often confuse these two intentions. I didn’t understand why I was blamed while vivisection was perfectly accepted at the Academy of Natural Philosophy. The great Anton Sokolov dissects subjects every day? Of course, he has the right to. The young Kirin Jindosh? Certainly not, he must be crazy to want to do that.”

For a mind like Jindosh’s, there was nothing worse than misunderstanding and frustration.

“Did you know that I was the youngest student to join the Academy of Natural Philosophy?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“I’ve dethroned the philosopher Joplin. Again, I only met idiots. Teachers who were three times my age and who barely understood third of what I was exposing them to.”

She imagined the scene: already rejected by his family, Jindosh was later rejected by the Academy. Always different, inhuman for others, in perpetual search: a wall was naturally built between him and the rest of the world.

“I was fired from the Academy but I already realized by then that I didn’t need them. I followed my own path. Today, I rejoice that my mother and my brother hear my name associated with the title of Grand Inventor, that my former teachers are like ignorant children when they try to read my treatises and my researches, the idea that Anton Sokolov failed where I succeeded, making you human again.”

Jindosh felt no shame at these memories: for him, he had never been in the wrong. But to evoke his past stirred a tenacious anger, like a throbbing tumor that wakes up from time to time, poisoning the mood and the body. Carefully, Emily approached, reaching the darkness of the room, turning her back to the gilding of the twilight.

“So I was right.”

“About what?”

“It’s not about not caring about relationships. You’re just disgusted by it.”

In a sour voice, he asked her:

“In what does my sociability interest the future empress, the great and just Emily Kaldwin?”

“Do you really want to know? Just to prove that I was right. You must know this guilty pleasure.”

His lips sketched a start of a smile, but without conviction.

Finally, it was not surprising that the first animal that Jindosh dissected was a cat: he himself had a very feline attitude, mixing pride and elegance. As a child, he must have been attracted by this creature, at once gentle and pretentious, with velvet paws and a metallic look. He might have thought he had something in common with it.

“Be frank, as usual.”

Emily maneuvered to reach the bed, avoiding looking at the Inventor. She tried to be detached and fatigue was a good excuse to exile into sleep.

“You already know the answer, Grand Inventor.”

The young woman settled on the mattress, savoring the reclining position that relieved her back. What also relieved her was that the man came to sit by her side, there was no more resentment: whereas he could have left in his laboratory as he did so often, he dared to approach for this time. And with great caution, Jindosh even lied next to her.

“Still, I’d like to know why you’re stubborn in your attachment, when in less than a month you’ll be back in Dunwall.”

“That won’t stop me from coming back to Karnaca. If you accept my presence, of course.”

For one answer, Jindosh placed his fingers between Emily’s, touching her wrist. Instead of comforting her, this contact reminded her of previous disappointments and, in the hope of consoling herself, the heiress tried a touch of humor:

“Are you trying to relax me with dopamine again?”

Again silence. She felt that she was suffocating: the man’s silence was too heavy for her heart and it weighed like a demon on her chest. Emily was ready to beg him to answer but she was too proud and preferred to endure the vise that was compressing her throat.

“It’s me who needs dopamine. You reopened old wounds by making me talk like that.”

Jindosh would lie if he said he had never felt anything for anyone. But he had always suppressed the slightest surge of affection, anticipating disappointment. If he has to live in turmoil, he could just confine himself to his mind, chaining insomnia, puzzles and new impossible theories rather than knowing rejection again.

But tonight was not an evening of torment: he was surprised to feel so serene. His wounds had reopened to be better dressed, stopping bleeding as if Emily had put her own hands on them. She had not judged him, she had not fled. On the contrary, she welcomed him. How long this feeling of well-being would last?

Emily slowly toppled to the side and put her free hand on Jindosh’s chest, feeling the heartbeat, the rhythm of breathing, the heat of his flesh.

“You build remarkable machines, Jindosh, but you remain human.”

The relief when he heard this sentence almost hurt him. It had been so many years since he had felt human because of the looks of others.

The man turned to her, blessing the night veil that hid them. He leaned in Emily’s arms, almost forgetting that she still had a fragile back. Accustomed to destruction, his embrace was at first violent: Emily’s vertebrae were small pearls that could break under so much strength, but he was afraid of seeing her disappear. The young woman had been his chimera, his creation. She who had torn her skin with words to gain access to his secrets, she was now her torturer. She who had replaced absence with a presence, silence with laughter, fear with indulgence, she became her beloved.

In this embrace, Jindosh recovered everything he had missed in all these years: warmth, tenderness, comfort. Protector like a queen, Emily kept him against her, caressing his hair to tame the tremors that gripped him, kissing his forehead to appease despair.

“Once empress, you won’t be able to leave Dunwall. You won’t be able to come to Serkonos anymore.”

“I’m no impatient to wear the crown, Jindosh. The coronation day will come soon enough and I don’t want to think about it.”

She wanted to seize the day as long as she could. And seized this night. Enjoy his palms against her back, his breath against her neck. She knew that he was amoral, that his usual phlegm could disappear in favor of unlimited cruelty. But Emily was convinced that the Inventor was not horrible, maybe just a little crazy because of a complex mind, maybe just a little too hurt by the others.

“Well, that said— did you know that my mother had suggested to Sokolov to live in the Dunwall Tower with a full laboratory?”

“I heard about it.”

“If I made you this offer, would you decline it too?”

“Certainly. But it would please me too.”

His tremors had completely disappeared. Emily still extended the hug, repeating her caresses.

“And if I asked you to stay with me tonight, would you also refuse?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

And, as a habit already acquired, they kissed each other, but this time with real sensitivity, the embrace of the lips completed by the one of the bodies. The wounds now unveiled, Jindosh asked her a favor:

“Don’t refer to my past or my family anymore. I can’t stand that one touches on my weaknesses or exposes them.”

“I understand.”

She put a finger on his mouth, letting it slide along the full lip.

“I’ll only refer to that, only to what’s pleasant.”

Under her touch, Emily guessed that the Inventor smiled, as reassured.

 

Crossing the corridor, Breanna took advantage of her loneliness to swear. The season of balls and receptions began in Karnaca and the nobles of all the islands came to spend a few weeks in the Jewel of the South. And that meant more work for the Curator of the Royal Conservatory, because beyond the more numerous visits to her museum, Breanna Ashworth had to be available to all this smart set. From morning till night, she met collectors, enthusiasts, buyers, curators, archivists— Exchanges of money and works punctuated her days, so her plans concerning Delilah had to wait.

Claudia had told her what Billie had discovered at the Clockwork Mansion, and Breanna did not expect such a surprise. She did not imagine a selfish individual like Jindosh helping the heiress. The scientific spirit was certainly attracted by the scarcity of the case, but did he intend to put her back into the sea? To keep her? To kill her? She was not close enough to the Inventor to predict his intentions. On the other hand, she imagined that he had taken notes.

Despite some inconveniences, she had an idea to approach the heiress: not being especially in affinity with the Inventor, she could not appear at the Clockwork Mansion naturally, and if Jindosh gave a few receptions, they were all likewise rare, the philosopher preferring his tranquility. It was therefore a question of keeping the Inventor away without him taking his subject or protecting her.

The elevator announced to the Curator that she had arrived on the ground floor **(or first floor? I know Americans say first floor so I can’t make a choice…)**. Breanna measured with pride the calm that reigned in the museum: her estate was a cathedral where respect and seriousness were de rigueur to savor available knowledge in a better way. The tables were occupied by eager readers, the libraries were surveyed and some groups whispered, intimidated under this immense dome.

Amos Finch was sitting in a big inflated armchair, a place that invited every occupant to read during entire lives. He left the seat with regret when he saw the Curator who apologized for being late.

“You’re all forgiven, Lady Ashworth, your establishment is pleasant, so divinely pleasant, I could’ve waited for you for several hours without realizing it.”

“You’re too kind, doctor Finch.”

On the way to the office, they discussed futile topics. Finch pointed out how beautiful the plants were: their green was intense, all the flowers, with heavy petals, smelled of stubborn perfumes. The wood of the furniture created the illusion of being the trunks that make up a primeval forest.

“We can’t decide if we’re in a jungle or a museum. You have green fingers!”

“It’s one of my talents, indeed.”, conceded the witch.

Millay’s painting was exposed in the middle of Breanna’s office. Finch uttered a delighted exclamation: he had come to buy the painting with the owner’s sustained offer, but seeing his new property filled him with joy. It was a picture of an old play where a dead young woman haunted the man she had loved. Breanna appreciated this story and the painter Millais had done a surprising job, mixing beauty and horror in the same image.

“Oh, I can’t, Lady Ashworth! I still don’t dare!”

“Come on, doctor Finch, no need to stand on ceremony: it makes you happy, so it makes me happy. I’ll just ask for a little service besides the sum.”

“Of course! Ask away. Which service?”

“To invite me more often in your house so that I can admire it from time to time.”

“Of course! Yes, of course!”

After dealing with administrative formalities and protecting the board in proper packaging with some instructions to keep it in good condition, the Curator invited the doctor to have a drink. Finch did not resist and accepted a reasonable amount of lemon liqueur. The heat increased from day to day, and the bitterness of the drink refreshed the throat and the stomach.

“Have you seen our Grand Inventor since my reception?”, asked Breanna all at once.

“I saw him a few days later, we exchanged some scientific data, very interesting scientific data.”, the director explained complacently as if he had participated in a discovery, neglecting to say that he had mostly recovered a patient while being kept in the dark. He still knew nothing of the Inventor’s experiment and had devised many theories to explain why the philosopher had cut the unhappy woman in two. “Why do you ask?”

“That’s between us, doctor Finch, but I found the Inventor pretty— odd. I know that the whole world thinks Kirin Jindosh is weird, but I had the feeling he was stranger than usual. Like distracted, even absent.

“I didn’t notice—”

“Actually, I’m not sure I understood, but during the evening, he said very curious things.”

Finch moved to the edge of the couch, captivated.

“Very curious things?”

“He told me about the heiress Emily Kaldwin.”

“The heiress? But nobody has seen heiress Emily Kaldwin for over a year! Some even claim she would be dead.”

“And yet, believe me, this isn’t the most surprising: he told me he have seen her with a fishtail.”

“A _what_?”

“A fish tail. Instead of legs. Like a mermaid in fairy tales.”

Finch gave up the last sip of liquor, completely stunned. He did not imagine Jindosh interested by legends that tended to the imaginary: he had always believed that this rational mind was closed to this kind of literature. Beyond that, he could not imagine Jindosh having hallucinations. But maybe—

“It can’t be possible. It’s absolutely impossible. Did he tell you where he had seen the heiress?”

“In the sea during a walk I think, he was pretty vague about it. He especially talked to me about the heiress. If you want my opinion, doctor Finch, I think the mass of work got the better of our Karnacian genius.”

“Maybe— It’s terrible— Absolutely terrible.”

The doctor was in pain. The Inventor was a person he greatly appreciated and knowing that this talented scientist could lose his mind hurt him.

“Do you think he needs rest? A forced rest like ‘holidays’?”

“I wouldn’t say that, but we should watch him. Watch out for incoherent words, wacky ideas and we’ll know if Kirin Jindosh really needs rest or not.”

As she looked sad, Breanna felt that her heart was becoming light.

 

“ _Lady Kaldwin. The joke went on long enough._ ”

On the contrary, it was just beginning. Sitting on the floor in the dim light, Emily bit her lips to hold back a laugh that could betray her. She knew that detectors were in a few corners of the manor, but she knew the places where there were none.

Jindosh sighed. He had already gone around the private apartments. In her condition, the patient could not have gone very far, but that did not prevent her from being ingenious.

The Inventor had spent the morning on the now-amputated fish tail while Emily was resting. He had informed the former owner that he had kept this relic for the purpose of checking some theories. And indeed: after carefully cutting the bluish scales, Jindosh found two femurs abnormally curved, shins and fibula were slightly twisted to meet the ankles. The muscles were totally distended, the veins entangled. The surgeon had wanted to show Emily the dissection but she refused, ordering him to keep this fish tail away from her.

If the curious specimen had found its place again in a tray of formaldehyde, the heiress was no longer in the room. For ten minutes, Jindosh had looked for her before starting to pull the levers, trying to understand where she had hidden.

Emily then pressed a switch and let the platform go down.

“You thought I couldn’t master your labyrinth, Jindosh?”

She was leaning against the wall, resplendent with pride. The Inventor shook his head without being able to hide his amusement.

“I should’ve installed a locking system or voice recognition.”

“And keep me locked? I’ve already told you, I’m a dispelled subject that you won’t be able to hold captive.”

“With your actual legs, you won’t get far for the moment anyway. Especially if you keep moving more than necessary.”

“I feel better.”

Emily grabbed her cane and managed to take a few steps. They lacked fluidity but they were gaining insurance hourly.

“I can’t wait to go out. To visit Karnaca.”

“All of a sudden you don’t fear witches anymore?”

“Of course I do, but I can go out incognito.”

“We’ll see that as soon as you can walk for more than five minutes.”

“Let’s do the test right away.”

The heiress went to the laboratory. The cane resonating against the floor, her hand skirting the red wall, Emily concentrated all her efforts in her walk. She straightened her shoulders and kept her back straight with more and more ease. The pain was totally secondary to the joy of being able to feel the ground beneath her feet.

“I must say that I didn’t miss your lab.”, the heiress said as she reached the end of the corridor. “Oh, but it’s nice to see Arthur again.”

The Clockwork Soldier so nicknamed passed in front of the heiress, continuing its security round, distilling the sound of its gears.

The effort was important and Emily sat on the edge of a table in the middle of the laboratory. She massaged her loins, touching with apprehension her skin still held by the staples under the bandage. The scar would certainly remain for many years, and it would never go away. If she was not a coquette, Emily was still annoyed; fearing that this scar could affects too much her reflection in the mirror. The future empress wondered if many men would be more repelled by this trace than attracted by her title of nobility. Out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Jindosh: with his unique mind, at least the man made a mockery of the first and the second details.

The Inventor had totally accepted Emily’s presence but saw her as an object or as a woman by turns. He cultivated this ambiguity unintentionally because these two free spirits, the only living beings in this field of gears, agreed on their need for independence and their very fleeting appetite for tenderness, quickly satiated in caresses and kisses. It was at least that way Jindosh felt it because Emily, more carnal, was still getting used to the idea of owning the half body of another. Every time she lowered her nose and knew that her toes were not quite hers yet. When her fingers brushed her thighs, the young woman felt like a thief who had no right to have what was under the belt. Emily wanted Jindosh to touch her as a man does with a woman, and no longer as a scientist does with his subject, but before arriving at that moment, the heiress had to tame this new body.

Emily saw in a corner the silvergraph that had served to immortalize her mermaid figure. She fiddled with her bottom lip as an idea was born, maybe she could see herself differently and figure out exactly what place Jindosh was giving to her.

“You’re not planning to take silvergraphs with my normal body? Like before and after the experiment?”

“I haven’t thought about it, the idea is interesting to trace the evolution of your recovery.”

“Then install the machine.”

In the laboratory, the workshops came one after another with ease to allow the optical platform to rise, changing the surroundings. Jindosh handled the silver plates with care, the attention captivated by these delicate manipulations. Emily, cross-legged on a piece of furniture covered with a white sheet, took the opportunity to remove the pin that held her hair and, yielding to a surge of casualness, removed her shirt before wrapping it around her hips, covering the bandage. Jindosh was still busy when he asked innocently:

“Can we start, Lady Kaldwin?”

“When you’re ready.”

Leaving one leg hanging and pulling the other under her, Emily waited for the Inventor to face her. And she appreciated his mute surprise, abandoning his legendary impassivity. Although Jindosh already knew the body of the young woman, he admired all the details, rediscovering it in a new light when she removed her bra to hide it behind her. With her fingers, Emily lifted her hair, exposing her chest slightly arching, aware that she should hold this position for several minutes, and Jindosh felt a strange dizziness between his ribs.

“I’m waiting, Jindosh.”

And he activated the silvergraph with a mechanical gesture.

Her eyes lowered, she had adopted a subtle expression where satisfaction brushed her mouth, while insolence made her triumphant. A few locks slipped on her neck but she remained static: she had already posed for several painters and mastered this ability to remain motionless. That said, Emily Kaldwin had never posed with a bandage and a shirt around the pelvis for only clothes.

“I hadn’t thought about this kind of silvergraphs—”

“I know.”

Attachment was a physiological reaction and, wandering into his madness that drove him to get more and more answers, Jindosh wondered what his own vivisection would look like in Emily’s presence.

He would let the heiress open the rib cage to extract the noisy heart and count each dry beat. He would let her dive her nails into his entrails where a heat had been burning for a few days. He would let her break his skull to see what colors came to blur his thoughts. Because all this did not look like him and he wanted to understand all of it. And finally, she would have the right to bite him so she could bring him back to life or let him in the depths of death as some mermaids do with their prey.

The machine reported that it has finished its task. A silvergraph of the future Empress almost naked, it was a rather original treasure. However, Jindosh preferred to own the model rather than the picture. This insolent young woman who had really ended up seducing him.

Emily raised her head to relax her muscles. She did not need to see the picture: the impression she had left Jindosh was enough.

“It goes without saying that you will keep this picture for you.”

“No one else will see it.”

“I guess you want to get back to work now.”

Emily applied to undo her bandage, feeling her carcass dwindle as the white band unfolded. Soon, Jindosh helped her, making sure that no clumsy gesture carried staple away with the bandage.

“The other silvergraphs either you won’t show them to anyone. And especially not to me.”

“Still can’t stand the view of your scar yet?”

When the swollen skin under the metal fasteners was exposed, Emily closed her eyes immediately. Everything was congested, damaged. Injuries from a street fight would have been less _dirty_.

“That’s awful.”, Emily commented without even looking. “I should’ve done the opposite: silvergraphs for your study and _then_ something more erotic.”

“Don’t dramatize, Lady Kaldwin: it isn’t that ugly. This plethoric state will diminish within a short week, and in five years we’ll hardly distinguish anything.”

“Five years? It’ll be so long?”

“Only in terms of the aesthetic order because I guess that’s what you wanted to know. But your motor function will be back well before this time.”

She did not tire of this peculiarity in the Inventor: provided with a solemn voice, Jindosh brought a new dimension to scientific monologues, sweeping the boring side to give them, involuntarily, charm. And luckily, he was a talkative man.

He checked the texture of the epidermis, touching the moisture without disgust, on the contrary satisfied with his work. Emily felt his fingers without perceiving them clearly: her skin seemed to have been replaced by dense cotton.

“It’s curious— I know you touch me but I don’t really feel it either.”

“Which is normal, don’t worry: the mechanoreceptors of your skin are still dull.”

There was a real contrast because when Emily touched him, Jindosh only felt that touch.

After having carefully cleaned this red line, Emily adopted the same seriousness in the official portraits, adapting to the rigor of the silvergraphs needed for study.

An empress mask sometimes appeared on her face, but each time the opportunity arose, Emily was stripped of this princely look to free her more undisciplined nature. Despite her still uncertain movements, the young woman still had that mermaid side to be able to slip, like a fish in the waves, in the cracks of the manor and those of its owner. Never had the mechanical soldiers been named, never had the levers been used for hide-and-seek, and never before had so many laughs been heard at the Clockwork Mansion.

Recalling the first silvergraph that evening, in the bed of the Inventor, Emily passed a hand in front of her eyes, unable to hold a quiet laugh. The last time she had had so much courage was when, at the age of fourteen, she spat in the glass of Baroness Willsbury’s wine who had been odious to Corvo at a reception.

Listening to the lab, Emily noticed no sound. The Inventor was caught up in his work and their first night together was still exceptional: the opportunity would not be repeated so soon. Yet she would have liked him to come back. Or better, she would have liked Jindosh to overthrow her right on this piece of furniture, as uncomfortable as it was, to finally make her love.

She had never told Jindosh that being a mermaid had been a constraint, dragging her into a particularly long abstinence. Emily was not particularly lecherous, but she was not puritanical either: she just loved life, she loved to blossom and, as was said little in high social circles because the expression was too direct, she liked sex. To find legs and her humanity was to recover sensations and impulses from which she had been deprived.

If Jindosh had approached, Emily would have raised the thighs without hesitation, as she did under the sheets to give life to her fantasy. And she would have felt him lying on her, she would have felt him between her legs. But imagination was not enough. Emily listened again to watch for the slightest sound before being sure everything was asleep around her. Then she pressed her palms against her stomach, thinking it might be Jindosh’s ones. After all, there was no harm in exploring if they were not her hands. The ghosts of the moon were slipping over the bed, echoing the movements beneath the sheet.

Her breathing, like her explorations, became deeper. To protect herself from a bad fate or a guilty conscience, Emily persuaded herself that she was not directing any gesture: she was still in the laboratory, under the light of the bulbs and not the moon’s rays, and it was Jindosh who caressing her. Her legs began to follow the pace of her fingers, increasing the pressure she exerted between the lips. These sensations had almost fallen into oblivion, but the sweetness that accompanied them revived instincts, surprising her in her reveries.

To build her pleasure, Emily gleaned some memories in the hollow of her skull, remembering especially how Jindosh had kissed her before the surgery. By intuition, her tongue moved in her mouth like looking for a twin. She repeated the same name in her mind, ignoring the rustle of cotton. Emily then placed her hand on her lips feeling the orgasm opening between her thighs like a peony that hatches smoothly. Those legs, which had been dead once, were biting again by the icy spasms of a milder death, and, like a finally calmed sea, Emily exhaled while savoring her fall.

Panting, she stretched out like a cat, stretching her arms above her head, feeling a sudden cold on her skin. The young woman found that sense of well-being that drove the clouds of the spirit. Now that the crime was committed, the young woman measured the innocence of the act: heiress of a throne and legs, she gradually realized that all this belonged to her.

Then she remembered the endorphins that Jindosh was talking about and let herself be won over by a delighted sleep, regretting, however, not being able to share this state with the Inventor. Straightening slightly on the pillow, she was trying to detect the sounds but the mansion was silent.

 

“Breanna wants me to go back to the Clockwork Mansion?”

“You’re the only one to have visited the place.” Claudia explained. The crickets, hidden in the bushes, made up a melody that put the twilight to sleep. In spite of their summer song, Billie’s coldness was such that Claudia felt uncomfortable.

“Is there something you don’t understand in ‘I won’t take part in your plans anymore’? Or you just don’t care?”

“I know, Billie. But this is the last favor Breanna asks you.”

The last. That was the word. During their conversation, the Curator did not half-express her thoughts: while explaining her plan, she intimately asked her apprentice to leave Billie dead. Claudia was saddened, but it was a sacrifice she had to fulfill. Since Billie persisted in her refusal to become a witch, Breanna no longer saw the value of getting her involved in her projects.

“And this is the last favor I ask you. After that, I won’t bother you anymore, I swear. If you want me to disappear, then I’ll disappear.”

Billie got up from the bench facing the Conservatory. It was past eight o’clock, but visitors still roamed the museum, which during the season was open until late at night. In the garden, the two women could speak freely even if groups of ladies and gentlemen also enjoyed the green corners, smoking lying on the grass, releasing from their mouth tobacco ghosts to the stars, the ephemeral mingling with the infinite. Billie felt more watched by the languid witches on the window sills: they watched the night world murmuring as usual sharp remarks.

Claudia did not have the audacity to approach the one who had meant so much before. Billie was now spending her nights on the roof of the building, only coming to the apartment to occupy the bathroom, preferring to eat in the neighborhood breweries. In vain attempts, the witch glued messages of love for Billie on the doors, on the furniture and even slipped some into her closet. If at least Billie could tear them up, but no, she ignored them with desperate stubbornness.

“I want you to disappear, yeah.”

And she wanted a bouquet to grow in the depths of her throat, that thorns slice from inside this white throat and tears her voice, that lianas tied between her teeth, that her tongue swells and overlaps of moss, suffocating with verdure. If Claudia loved flowers so much then she could die well sinking under a hug of leaves. That way was the only one for this woman to disappear completely from Billie’s life.

Finally, the witch got up in her turn but instead of approaching her friend, she went away toward her sisters, marking once again the separation. She would try to get Billie to listen to reason later, and if the failure persisted, she could cast a few spells.

Blanche was sitting at the top of the stairs at the entrance, waiting for the verdict of the new favorite. At the disappointed face, Blanche realized that Billie was not convinced yet. Claudia sat on a lower step to maintain a hierarchy between them.

“Breanna has a perfect plan: we can’t go to the Clockwork Mansion with a disadvantage just because your girlfriend refuses to cooperate.”

“It’s been several days since Billie isn’t even a ‘girlfriend’ anymore.”

The superior let out a curse before grumbling:

“If only we could have the heiress on a silver platter.”

Since she was closer to Breanna, Blanche took the direction of the Conservatory to warn her that Claudia had failed to convince her friend.

Billie could no longer support all these bushes and oppressed by these huge trees, so she left the garden. She preferred to feel the pavement under her feet; she preferred to be illuminated by the light of the street lamps rather than the gigantic lantern that was the Royal Conservatory. She felt that she was the only one to go to the bars while all the passers-by were heading towards this witches’ nest, attracted like nocturnal insects towards a light bulb.

As she was about to enter a bar, Billie froze: at the end of the avenue, ahead a huge metal gate, she had just recognized the Grand Inventor. Because of his eccentricity, Billie had no doubt about the identity of the man. But she was more skeptical about who was accompanying him. And soon, she understood: Kirin Jindosh had offered his arm to the future empress Emily Kaldwin who was also using a cane, advancing on two perfectly human legs.

“So he wanted to help her—”, Billie murmured, shocked. She noticed how the young woman walked while keeping herself close to her companion, revealing a great complicity between them.

Hundreds of stories had written a black legend around the Grand Inventor, giving him adjectives such as ‘cruel’, ‘mocking’, ‘sadistic’ or ‘inhumane’. Billie had never believed rumors which often distorted reality and exaggerated traits, so she had never thought about this man. But obviously, the rumors had forgotten to mention that Jindosh was careful, talkative, courteous, while remaining as extravagant and proud. From time to time, with an unconscious gesture, he stroked Emily’s hand resting on his arm, surprising Billie who was watching. The Inventor and the heiress looked like a couple on a walk, a detail that would not escape because despite the night, journalists would recognize Jindosh and draw a new portrait of this personality of Serkonos, mentioning the unknown who accompanied him. The face of the Empress’ daughter was known to some thanks to paintings, and many of the nobles who walked the street in front of the Conservatory had the honor of seeing her at Dunwall at receptions, but Emily Kaldwin had disappeared for so long that nobody would make the connection. At most, the hypotheses could speak of a vague resemblance.

And Billie, though she was not well born, had already seen the heiress in front, just as Emily had seen her too, so she snuck into the shadow of an alley, hoping that Emily did not see her.

“The Royal Conservatory is gigantic.” the heiress observed with some admiration. She had never had the opportunity to visit it and as she finally discovered the streets of Karnaca, she finally saw one of the most prestigious places of her empire. “Is it open even at this time?”

“The curator, Breanna Ashworth, opens it until midnight during the season, just to be available to the nobles. You know what the idle life is: we get up at noon, we dine at twenty-two, we grow in the middle of the night—”

“You can criticize them. I remind you that when we slept together, you woke up at two in the morning as if it was dawn.”

“Because you forced me to sleep much earlier than usual. I don’t sleep as much as you.”

“When you say it like that, it looks like I’m a dormouse while I don’t sleep that much. And slow down a little, I don’t know where your long legs will take us.”

Jindosh had made sure he was careful, but he had a tendency to forget that he had to walk at the same pace as his patient. Still she was doing better and better. In the morning, they had crossed one of the long avenues of the Aventa Quarter, skirting the buildings.

One of them had been seized because of an invasion of bloodflies and Emily, who had never seen these parasites, had asked Jindosh to describe them. He explained to her, without any hiding, how these mosquitoes, almost as big as sparrows, stung to death and unlike bees that used wax and pollen to make their alveoli, the bloodflies used the skin and organs, nestling in the bowels of their victims. Far from being impressed, Emily had interpreted these details as a challenge and had begun climbing the gutter to explore and see by herself. Jindosh had protested immediately, asking her to go down: in addition to risking being attacked, she was not sufficiently recovered to embark on such dangerous adventures.

Yet despite her still fragile state, the Inventor had noticed her agility. Emily had explained all her nocturnal escapades that allowed her to sleep since it was only once tired from climbing to the roofs and trotting on the tiles that she could sink into dreamless nights. Having never seen her at these moments, Jindosh had been skeptical, knowing the rugged and uneven landscape of Dunwall, but since that first demonstration he had not questioned her words.

Now behind them, Billie saw their progress towards the Royal Conservatory. She had no intention of hurting them or helping them. She had no intention of interfering with this intrigue anymore. But the curiosity was too strong and, anxious, she wondered if Claudia would soon see them.

And indeed, the red-haired witch recognized the Inventor and screamed at seeing Emily being released from her mermaid status.

“It can’t be!”

Faced with a dilemma, Claudia did not know whether she had to go looking for Breanna or whether to launch an attack. She would not have time to get to the top floor and even if Breanna was there, she could not demonstrate her witchcraft in the middle of the street with all the witnesses.

Ignoring the emotion it aroused, the couple continued to follow its path, Jindosh taking care to respect Emily’s pace.

“Want to see the Curator?” asked the young woman.

“Absolutely not. I don’t appreciate her more than that and if she recognizes you, be sure she won’t let us go until she knows why you’ve been missing from Dunwall all this time.”

“Fair point. And I’m not ready for this kind of sociality yet.”

“I think you’ve never been.”

Emily laughed at the same moment a thorn rushed to her face. She did not know where her instinct came from, whether it was thanks to her father’s training or just a survival reflex, but Emily stooped immediately, dragging Jindosh into her retreat. Being a suspicious nature since the attack of Delilah, Emily let this vigilance to dictate all her choices and gestures: she did not regret having carried a revolver she had stored behind her back like the nobles fond of the duels worn. With a quick gesture, she armed herself and pointed the gun in front of her.

Although he was not a botanist, Jindosh was surprised by the characteristics of the spine that had planted in a stone column instead of the head of the heiress: a formidable size, he tried to calculate the projectile velocity to achieve such impact in the stone. The few passers-by screamed and ran to take refuge in the buildings to protect themselves. Suddenly remembering Emily, Jindosh grabbed her by the waist and tried to convince her to hide too.

“I won’t!”

She was furious, recognizing the projectile that had disfigured her mother: witches had spotted her and dared to attack her. Emily was no longer a helpless mermaid: she was the daughter of Corvo Attano, able to defend herself. She had already broken the nose of a soldier with whom she was training; she was planning to break an enemy’s shin tonight.

Claudia, with two sisters, rushed to their victim, disappearing and reappearing in the air to destabilize the heiress. Emily concentrated for catching one of the witches and shooting her. A silhouette formed then and she fired, wounding the thigh of her adversary. The second witch approached as close as possible, and as the nails became green claws, she tried to hit her target. With a reflex that was straining her pelvis, Emily turned around, countering the blow, twisting the arm that had tried to hurt her until she heard a crack like a breaking branch.

She was too focused to see Claudia throwing a new thorn, aiming deliberately at the legs of the heiress. Since she had managed to get out of her siren condition, her joy would be short-lived. The cone sank deep into the muscle, rubbing against the bone and Emily screamed.

The young woman nearly fell, losing her balance, but Jindosh caught her and took the revolver from her hands. This red-haired witch had just tried to wreck his work. For a moment, Claudia could not tell who was the most terrifying: the gun’s barrel pointed at her or the cold, imperturbable gaze of the Inventor. She was unable to decide even when the bullet broke her jaw, shattering the bone and creating an explosion of heat in her skull, producing sparkling sparks before total darkness.

Billie had witnessed the scene and suddenly became angry, unsheathed her knife. She rushed at the man who had just killed Claudia, turned him around and shot down her blade. Jindosh managed to dodge, raising his hand in a protective reflex. The blade, carried by an enraged force, contented itself with slicing what it found instead of the Inventor’s throat. A stream of blood began to flow down Jindosh’s arm. He, who was always careful to never be splashed with blood, had his clothes soaked for the first time. Lowering his head, he noted, with a detachment that was perhaps due to shock, that half of his left hand had fallen to the ground. A thumb and an index together in an almost comical solitude. Jindosh tried to laugh at it, but the sharp pain that lit up what was left of his hand began to stab at him.

Emily, in spite of the red chaos, recognized the woman who had entered the Clockwork Mansion and, with her valid leg, kicked Billie’s ankle hard.

A though man arrived, his neck as thick as an ox, trying to put an end to the fight. His intervention was followed by the guards who had been called to help. Their presence pushed the remaining witches back: the members of the Abbey would not delay and the assassination of the heiress had unfortunately failed. Claudia’s body had not moved from the roadway on which she had fallen. Billie, with a hurt ankle, left the corpse, her heart overwhelmed with remorse, regretting her wish a few minutes earlier. At least Claudia had a quick death.

“Call a doctor!” yelled someone in the street.

“What happened?” asked one of the guards to the beefy man while colleagues tried to chase down the assailants.

“I don’t know— These two people were walking around when this woman attacked the lady.” replied Aramis Stilton, pointing to the dead woman. “Then there was a whole chain of attacks— I know a colleague of doctor Hypatia who lives in the neighborhood, I can go and get him if you allow me.”

“Go with him.” said the guard to a colleague before glancing at the two victims. The man jumped: he had just recognized the Grand Inventor. Immediately, he thought that the attackers had a good reason to blame the terrifying Jindosh and he walked away from this individual although he was armed.

From one of the windows of the Conservatory, Breanna stared at the Inventor and the heiress. Jindosh’s intentions were perfectly clear and it was too late to kill the siren in the laboratory. Her plan had barely changed however, and the witch still expected to convince Billie to return to the Clockwork Mansion.

The curator looked at Claudia’s body with some sadness, carrying her fingers to her mouth.

“Poor little girl— I hope that your loss won’t be vein and will convince the one you lost.”

Down the alleyway, Aramis Stilton quickened his pace with the guard to reach the building of the doctor he knew. He had a harsh day and only wanted to drink a glass of whiskey far from home. Finally, it was not yet time to rest and he began to pound on the door of the apartment.


	7. C H A P T E R 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what? I give you two chapters at once, even if they aren't beta-readed, instead of waiting 10 days: I learned this morning that I passed all my exams and that the master aimed (which has only 19 places) has just accepted my application.

When she opened her eyes, Emily saw an unnaturally gray sky. For a moment she thought she was back in the Void. No, there was coherence in this world that did not belong to the realm of the Outsider. So she imagined being in Dunwall, recognizing the sound of the rain against the windows. But it was a heavy rain, contrasting with the finer and more regular rain of her native city. The room in which she was lying was immaculate. And the pain she felt in her leg was just as pure, piercing her.

Emily had no desire to cry: she was just a cup where a deep anger was growing up. So that was it to be the heiress to the throne of the Empire of the Isles? Being attacked by her aunt, transformed into a legendary creature, saved by a disturbing inventor and then targeted by fanatical witches? What other surprises awaited her on the road to the crown?

Her fists clenched, trying to repress spasms. Her mother was a fair and beloved empress, but the heiress was not sure that she could show the same leniency as the bruises accumulated. Having traitors executed could warn potential plotters—

“You’re finally awake.”

When she heard this solemn voice, Emily remembered the events in detail: Jindosh had been attacked too in front of the Conservatory. She turned to him to see that he was sitting near on a simple wooden chair, as sober as the rest of the room. In an instinctive gesture, Emily took his hand and Jindosh winced.

“Gently, Lady Kaldwin, the analgesic won’t work if you hold my hand like that.”

“Excuse me—” Emily unfolded her fingers and observed what she had pressed so hard: if the bandage concealed the wound totally, the absence of two fingers was obvious. His hand looked so fragile, so cramped. There was still blood turned brown under his fingernails.

“I’ll kill them all.” the young woman hissed, her eyes dark.

“You’ll do what you want.” replied the Inventor. “But before you avenge, try to recover.”

“I’ll avenge you at the same time.”

“I don’t need you to do that, Lady Kaldwin.”

He took the newspaper that was on his lap and handed it to Emily. The name of the  _Karnaca Gazette_ was eclipsed by a title printed in immense characters: it claimed that the Grand Inventor had been attacked in the company of a young mysterious woman.

“All the newspapers talk about it.”

The journalist, someone named Jacob Raspberry, had focused on two particularities of this minor news item: first, that the authors of the mischief were probably witches, criminals that the public thought had disappeared since the failure of the coup, secondly, that Kirin Jindosh, reputed for his tenacious single status, was accompanied by a woman and that the two seemed very close according to the witnesses of the scene.

Blood and romance, all the journalists and their readers enjoyed so much.

Emily continued to browse the article, reading the doctor Moretti had been called by a certain Aramis Stilton, a name that was not foreign to her without recalling a specific face. An investigation was opened and if the main hypothesis meant revenge directed at the Grand Inventor, it was contradicted by the fact that the first victim was the unknown woman.

Jindosh approached slowly to whisper:

“At least nobody knows that the Grand Inventor walked arm-in-arm with the future Empress.”

“Why are you whispering so low?” Emily asked following his example.

“The doctor who treated us, doctor Moretti, doesn’t know who you are. This Raspberry will certainly pay him a visit, so we shouldn’t leave too many clues.”

“You’re right.”

The most reasonable gossip, as well as the most improbable one, would soon appear various. The most skeptical would contradict the information, assuring that the Inventor had been attacked the first because guilty of a crime against witches. Still others would ensure that the woman at his arm was a witch herself and all of it was a stunt to kill Jindosh. But nobody would even be close to the truth of this case.

The principals were unaware of all the stories that were beginning to be written about their evening, more occupied with dodging the questions of doctor Moretti who was really intrigued. When Emily got up to take her things, the doctor tried to hold her back, but she assured him that she felt better, even if the way she had to stand on her cane contradicted this claim. The doctor did not get more from the Inventor than he had treated: Jindosh was sure he could go home. No, he did not need to rest. Yes, he could handle the latent trauma. No, he would not give the name of the one who accompanied him. And no, he did not know why they had been attacked and even though it was up to the Guard to investigate.

It was no longer raining but the black clouds were heavy like metal lids. As the day before, Jindosh lent his arm to Emily, who was leaning on it more by need than by desire this time. Each step planted raging needles in her calf, totally paralyzing her leg. The vegetable cone had damaged the muscle, barely irritating the bone. Although doctor Moretti had immobilized the limb in a tight bandage to limit movement, her walking was flawed. All Emily knew was that her recovery time was prolonged. She felt nauseous because of the pain and turmoil that was stirring under her stomach.

With his arm hanging, Jindosh was trying to move his remaining fingers, trying to get used to the new sensation. The clean cut had made the doctor’s job easier. But his mind was haunted by an obsession: where were his orphaned fingers?

“I would have liked to keep them.” Jindosh said as he climbed into the car while helping Emily.

“Keep what?”

“What I lost.”

“It was too late for a transplant, Jindosh.”

“I wasn’t thinking of a transplant. Just keep them.”

Normally, Emily would have laughed at him, but her mood had lost all sparkle and lightness.

It was only on returning to the Clockwork Mansion that Jindosh realized how dismal she had become. It was not the shock: it was the certain birth of hate that killed her smile, erased the light from her eyes and stifled her humor. The Clockwork Soldier in the hall, nicknamed Franklin, was ignored by the heiress who stubbornly climbed the stairs, swearing every time her foot refused to land. Emily exiled herself into the apartments, leaving behind her only a deep silence that finally regained its rights in the strange home of the Grand Inventor. Habits re-emerged as a curse and the philosopher took the direction of his laboratory, his heart drained of feelings, his head full of thoughts.

The sky imitated the sea, spilling torrents of water to disturb the waves. A thunderstorm threatened and the rain was hot, inviting all the children to go out bare-chested in the streets shouting with joy, inviting all the perfumes of the gardens to dance under the windows.

In the laboratory, there was no laughter or fragrance. Motivated by morbid curiosity, Jindosh unrolled the bandage around his hand, watching the sutures that looked like white crocuses coming out of his skin. Curious flowers upon a strange earth where the blood had made the artist, brushing the closed wound with its red color. His long fingers unfolded and fold and so on, pain overlaid with an indefinable discomfort.

“I can’t stay like that. I need my hands complete to work.”

To test the stump, Jindosh grabbed a screwdriver but without his thumb, his gestures were clumsy, if not impossible. The tool passed in his right hand and the Inventor was tempted to throw the object with all his might, to plant it in a dead or alive skull and break the bone just to let off steam. He kept his calm however, still repugnant to the mess and soothed by an idea that was emerging little by little. He needed both his full hands as Emily needed her legs. If he had been able to give a whole body to the heiress, he would be able to find a hand supplemented with a prosthesis. Ignoring the rain hammering against the dome, Jindosh sat down at his desk and began sketching with his right hand, glad to be ambidextrous since his childhood.

After the wet impacts against the windows, a first thunderclap imposed a frightened silence. In the streets of Karnaca, only the brave children continued to play, mocking the comrades who had hidden in the houses. The leaves of the trees were attacked by drops as big as pearls, their green flesh hit by watery arrows. Emily could no longer see the landscape from the balcony, the rainy curtain hid the peaks at her feet, and the silhouettes of the mountains had disappeared, but she clearly heard that constant pounding. Weather was crying for her. Legs stretched out in front of her, elbows planted on the armrests, eyes fixed, the heiress wished that her hate could engulf the world as the storm destroyed the horizon—

 

“If only you had cut off Kirin Jindosh’s hand before he operated the Kaldwin—” Blanche sighed.

“It doesn’t matter: Breanna still has her plan.”

“Which is interesting, isn’t it?”

Billie shrugged. There was usually a pleasant coolness in the basement of the Royal Conservatory, but the storm had infiltrated everywhere, annoying those it was touching, weighing on shoulders and warming the spirits. Billie took off her jacket to stay only with her shirt, already feeling the sweat sticking in her back.

She watched the witches apply lavender oil on Claudia’s body. The smell of death refused to submit to the mauve fragrance, but it was a funeral ritual dear to sorceresses. Soon, this beloved body would join the earth, no longer welcoming the woman’s caresses but only those of the earthworms, and the broken jaw would not receive any kiss anymore.

Billie wanted to throw up.

“You still loved her, then.” her neighbor observed, but Billie persisted in her habitual silence.

Yes, she still loved Claudia: six long years of love and complicity could not bury themselves under a few flowers as she had wished. Under this green face, beneath these creepers clinging to the skin, Billie always saw her Claudia, the one who danced after the fourth glass of whiskey, the one who pecked blackberries in kilos, coloring her teeth, the one who deliberately wore low necklines attracting Billie’s eyes toward the brown stars that covered her throat.

The Claudia she knew and loved tenderly. The Claudia who loved flowers without ordering them. The Claudia who was not witch.

“Well, I’m not stupid, Billie, I know you agreed to join us for the opportunity to kill the Inventor, but believe me: follow Breanna’s instructions and Kirin Jindosh will suffer more than if you stuck a blade in his neck.”

Blanche tried to get closer to the woman to comfort her as a sister would do with a fellow, but Billie moved away.

“No matter what I intend to do or what Breanna wants to do to him: the Inventor will never know what it’s to lose a dear person.”

She thought her mind had become more hardened since Deirdre’s disappearance, but it had broken in the same way with Claudia’s death. Yet a doubt had wrapped its creepers around her poor heart, planting its roots to her unconscious: Billie did not know if her grief was caused by Kirin Jindosh or Breanna Ashworth. Who had taken Claudia away from her first?

“Didn’t you say that Kirin Jindosh and the Kaldwin were— ‘partners’? Maybe once Jessamine’s daughter is dead, he’ll know what it is.”

“I doubt a man like this, if all the rumors are true, is able to love.”

“You’re not wrong—”

And even so, Billie denied that the affection she shared with Claudia or Deirdre was compared to another. Jindosh could not understand her suffering, unless the man observes how Emily’s dislocated body was prepared for eternal rest, to understand that this familiar voice was forever extinguished, to know how these arms capable of warm embraces could become cold and indolent. And then only, Jindosh could claim to experience the same suffering caused by absence.

 

The heiress stood abruptly from the wheelchair, annoyed by the immobility. Earlier in the day, she had seen in the small laboratory in Jindosh’s room a blade of a Clockwork Soldier. A sword too big and abandoned on a table, ready to complete an automaton arm. But for the moment, it was linked to a very alive and furious arm.

Returning to the balcony, Emily slammed the blade on the wheelchair, rejoicing at every sound of the attacked wood. Sometimes she missed her shots, destabilized by the evil nibbling her leg, but Emily stubbornly and concentrated a terrible force each time she pulled down the sword. The mess was so loud that she did not hear the crackling of the speakers:

“ _Lady Kaldwin! May I know what you’re doing?!_ ”

Jindosh’s voice was angry. Ignoring the question, the heiress continued to hit the seat. She had dreamed of that day and would not wait another minute before getting rid of that ridiculous throne.

“ _I’ve particularly sensitive ears, Lady Kaldwin, and I’m working on something delicate so stop that noise immediately!_ ”

“Leave me alone, Jindosh!”

“ _Only if you leave me alone first!_ ”

The back of the seat ends up splitting and the wood creaked, imitating the roar of a storm. The blade was barely scratching the metal rods, but Emily knew she would get it done.

“ _If you don’t stop, I lock you in a cage under the laboratory._ ”

For answer only, Emily swung her makeshift sword behind her, wavering because of the weight. She mumbled some insults that Jindosh heard, confirming that her spoken word was not worthy of an imperial person. Then the inventor heard a new thud.

“ _Lady Kaldwin!_ ”

Emily had not been able to lift the wheelchair, so she sent it roll to the guardrail and passed it over, sending it to the forest depths.

“Leave me alone, Jindosh. I want to be left alone since this is only way for me to be safe, far from traitors, hypocrites and plotters, without wanting to kill everyone. So shut up already or you’ll be the first I’ll fight.”

A sizzle let Emily believe that Jindosh had just cut the line, but he said in a very calm tone:

“ _Come to the laboratory, Lady Kaldwin._ ”

“So you can lock me in a cage?”

“ _No._ ”

“Anyway, if you do that, Jindosh, you won’t come out unscathed.”

“ _I would like to see that._ ”

“Don’t tempt me, I’m not in the mood.”

Their voices clashed coldly.

“ _Come to the laboratory, Lady Kaldwin._ ” repeated the inventor more gently. And this time, the communication was over, the invitation becoming an obligation.

It had been almost two days since they had seen each other: Jindosh had not left his laboratory and Emily had confined herself to the Inventor’s bedroom, ruminating on her hatred. She had thought the Inventor was doing the same, like a wounded cat going into its lair to lick its wounds and yowl at the first hand that would approach it, but maybe she was wrong.

Free from the wheelchair but not from the cane, Emily leaned on it to cross the corridor that led to the laboratory. The Inventor was busy at one of the workshops, turning his back to her. When she saw him, Emily felt her anger flicker. She would have liked to hug him but her pride hindered this need for comfort. Moreover, she had threatened him and he could therefore be mistaken about her gesture. After sitting on a high stool, she folded her arms, trying to keep herself in her bitterness.

“Why did you ask me to come?”

Jindosh showed her his hand, looking for her reaction. Emily was speechless: the hand was complete again but strange, with a thumb and an index made of smooth, white material. Curious, the young woman touched the articulated fingers, feeling the freshness of the ceramic that contrasted with the warmth of the skin. It was not a classic prosthesis, there was something more.

“What is it?”

“A prosthesis that also serves as a pipe.” replied the Inventor with pride. And Emily, forgetting her animosity in a moment, let a great burst of laughter warm her throat.

“But why did you invent that?”

“Does your question really need an answer?”

She was still holding this original hand in the hollow of hers, enjoying the sweetness of vitrified ceramic. Jindosh pulled the silver cigarette case out of his pocket and handed it to the young woman.

“I don’t need it anymore and I’m certain you’ll make good use of it.”

She inspected the case, opened it and took out a cigarette before trapping it between her lips.

“There are your initials engraved on the case, Jindosh.” the heiress remarked. “Luckily your name is Kirin, the letter K can work for Kaldwin, I’ll just add an E just before.”

“You’ll find a jeweler able to erase the J.”

“No, I keep the J. EKJ will be carved on it— Anyway, thank you, I really appreciate the gift.”

Especially since she knew they were rare. She admired how the light reflected on the metal, seeping into the engravings. With a courteous gesture, Jindosh lit Emily’s cigarette before burning the stuffed tobacco in his knuckle, which made the young woman laugh again.

“I still don’t know if you’re completely a madman or a genius.”

“One rarely goes without the other.”

“That’s right and you’re a perfect example.”

Emily flattered him: she suspected the lack of empathy with the Inventor’s thirst for knowledge, although she was totally unaware of the sound of the cogs that kept his mind awake or how he saw the world overflowing with mechanisms to understand, but even disguising her admiration with that eternal touch of humor, she recognized how great the Inventor was. And it was for Jindosh the most beautiful compliment.

He had asked her to come in his laboratory to show her this prosthesis, convinced that the invention would give her a smile. And Jindosh was not mistaken: when amused, Emily had the habit of turning her face slightly as if she was trying to mask her joy without being able to stop laughing frankly. An attitude she shown exactly at that time.

“I prefer you that way.” Jindosh observed.

“How?”

“Mischievous. Alive. Strong. You have an expressive look, very subtle but for an observer like me, nothing very complicated. But these last days, you looked too much like your father. You were dreary and withdrawn. I appreciate the silence and calm, certainly, but I don’t want a female version of the Royal Protector between my walls.

“You don’t know my father very well. With this austere reputation, he can make the best jokes at the Dunwall Tower without ever being suspected. I envy him on this point.”

Satisfied with his work, the Inventor left his laboratory with the heiress. When she came down from her perch, she straightened up, leaning on the cane to palliate the weakness of her leg, resistant to pain.

“So you’re really starting to like me, aren’t you?”

“Could you stop asking such obvious questions, you sound stupid.”

Emily expected such a response. She had never mentioned what she felt herself and she could not blame the man for showing the same coyness.

She wanted to live something with the Inventor despite the difficulties that such a spirit could impose. Little worn on compliments, Emily would easily endure Jindosh’s greed about sentimental aspect. She was independent herself, so she would got along with the fierce temperament of the man without the slightest difficulty. As for all his faults, like the arrogance he often showed, she would be able to ignore them for his bad days. But her future as Empress was more important than her love projects and the future crown was dragging her to a different path than she had imagined.

And Emily was gradually becoming aware of it.

“Too bad. But I am ready to lose your affection.”

Jindosh looked at her, surprised.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m still only the heiress but I understood that I must prove myself from today, to make my people understand that I’ll be an intractable Empress. The throne, these legs and my desire for revenge, all that comes to my right and I decided to keep it and defend it. It isn’t with humor or malice that I’ll achieve it.”

“Whatever you do, the Dunwall nobles are eternally dissatisfied, and you already know it.” replied Jindosh absently.

“But I can dissuade them from becoming traitors.”

“And how will you do that?”

“With to you. I want you to be my Grand Inventor in Dunwall. Forget what I said earlier, Jindosh: never leave me alone, your talent could be useful to me in my projects.”

“Are you becoming a tyrannical empress?”

“I would be if I didn’t leave you the choice. But it isn’t an order, it’s a request.”

“Ah ah! Once again, you look like your father! When the Royal Protector came to ask me to take care of you, he supported a very polite request from your mother who was actually an order.”

“I let you make your choice, Jindosh. I’m sincere. I ask you to be my Inventor or whoever you will accept to be. I’ll be inflexible with my subjects, but with you it’ll be different.”

The man was suspicious. He noticed the blade of the Clockwork Soldier on the balcony and the pieces of wood. He understood the origin of the din. Little by little, he discovered a violent tendency in the young woman.

Jindosh wondered if he had really managed to grasp the heiress: she had shown honesty, sympathy and even tenderness. Now that she asked him to be at her service, he suspected a maneuver to manipulate him. And as if she guessed his doubts, Emily approached slowly adding:

“I’ve too much respect for you to want to manipulate you, Jindosh. And even if you refuse, I would be disappointed but still— very attached to you.”

The heiress felt more vindictive than before, feeling in the depths of her entrails an anger that would only be extinguished with witch’s blood. However, Jindosh’s presence soothed this fierce hatred, making her forget her wishes for massacre. Far from being cheerful, this feeling actually made Emily face a dilemma: welcoming the Grand Inventor at Dunwall was to keep those feelings more noble than hatred, reassured by a trusted person, but it was also to let his amoral tendency influence her character, at the risk of making her as cruel as he was. As his absence could preserve her from these odious tendencies while sharpening her mistrust, accentuating a feeling of vulnerability.

But in the end, Emily knew with some relief that she did not have to decide for an answer: it was the decision made by Jindosh that would count. A decision that the Inventor had already made.

“You know I won’t come to Dunwall, Lady Kaldwin. But what does it change? You want me to work for you and my mansion is the best place to work. My inventions are not bought only in Karnaca, we’ll work from remotely.”

Of course. Jindosh saw the professional plan first and foremost, his work was his priority. If his choice was different, Emily would not have believed it.

“And you already knew my answer. Will you stop asking absurd questions today?”

“There is no absurd question, just answers that help. Your presence would have been dear to me, but obviously it’s unaffordable even for an empress.”

“Exactly.” his feline smile reflected all his pride and if the man had been a cat, he would have purred. Conversely, the heiress sighed.

“When Sokolov told about you to my parents, I wasn’t there, I was out at sea, convinced that I would never find my lost human condition again. But today, since I can compare, I can tell the marine environment is much less dangerous than the civilized world. That’s why I wanted you by my side: you know what it’s like to defend yourself against a world that seeks to hurt you.”

“‘A world that seeks to hurt you’, we always come back to the same point, Lady Kaldwin. Three witches attacked you, enemies you already knew. It just means this battle isn’t over. You boast of having survived at sea without the help of anyone and now that you have legs, you’re weaker than when you were a mermaid. Even you, with a more ordinary mind than mine, you should understand it’s illogical. Forget this aggression, it poisons your head.”

“I’m still shocked, Jindosh. You lost half of your hand and I can’t forget that. You prefer me alive and mischievous, but that’s not how we protect those who are dear to us. So too bad if I lose your esteem, I prefer to be sure you’re safe.”

“I’ve already escaped several accidents in my workshop, my luck might not have lasted. And then what would you have done? Destroy my laboratory so that I couldn’t hurt myself anymore? Your naivety is appalling. I’ve been wounded so I’ll avenge myself, because just like you, I know how to fight. In the meantime, I surpassed this ordeal.” Jindosh said, showing his left hand. It was complete again, so the loss was compensated. “Do the same, your majesty, since you’re so strong.”

“I’m not strong enough. But I can be with you by my side.”

“Since when did Emily Kaldwin need someone to feel strong?”

Emily was silent, bewildered. She was nearing a quarter of a century but she realized how immature she could be. Court members thought of her as impatient and sometimes selfish, and even though her mother assured her that these traits would pass over time, she feared that her character was definitely poisoned by these flaws.

Nobody had the same audacity Jindosh had to speak to an heiress like this, and she realized how much this speech, offensive at first, opened her eyes.

“Now, if you allow me, Lady Kaldwin, I need rest, and you should do the same.”

He pulled the lever of the room, counting on the movable wall of the bathroom to leave the heiress behind him. Despite her disability, she rushed to him and, deprived of her cane she had dropped, clung to his shoulders to not stumble because of the movement of the platform.

“Thank you, Jindosh. I needed that.”

Jindosh had thought he had offended the heiress but she remained the same person he knew: humble as a noble, proud as a woman. Vindictive when she was hurt, sweet when she was loved and stronger than she seemed to think.

“I need you for so many reasons. You’re someone who manages to talk to me as an equal, able to reason without worrying about propriety.”

Jindosh accepted her embrace that reminded him of all he could feel for her. In the end, he understood how tired Emily had been: he had suffered a greater loss and she had witnessed the tragedy. If the witches had ransacked the heiress’ legs, he would certainly have felt a greater anger because she was his creation. Because she was Emily Kaldwin.

“I don’t know which Empress I’ll be, but with you, I’ll stay true.”

Because they were reconciled, Emily buried her face in the hollow of Jindosh’s shoulder.

“I’m glad to hear it, you know how much I value your thinking, your outspokenness.”

“Since you are talking about outspokenness, maybe it’s time for me to be totally frank—”

Sticking her cheek against his, Emily held her breath for a handful of seconds. Perhaps by measuring her breathing, the words would come out more easily. The young woman closed her eyes and surrendered herself in her declaration with a barely audible whisper. As Jindosh’s grip tightened, she knew he had heard her.

“It’s certainly the worst thing that could have happened to you, Lady Kaldwin.”

“I know. It’s horrible, isn’t it?”

“It’s worse than that.” Jindosh held her against him. “Reciprocity makes our situation worse. Do you think there’s a theorem about the symmetry of feelings? Or is it just an axiom about attraction that no one, not even me, can understand?”

“I know you can’t help yourself, but there are times when you’ve to stop thinking, Jindosh.” Emily answered. If Jindosh had enough effrontery to lecture the heiress, Emily had enough insolence to ask the genius to shut up. And since the courage was reborn in her like a flower after the dreary winter, the young woman counted on gathering this momentum:

“Did you plan to use the bathroom or was it just to shut me out?”

“I planned to use it.”

“So when you go out, don’t get dressed. And yes, it’s an order from your future empress.”

 

The day mimicked the night and rivers poured into the streets of Karnaca, echoing the water Jindosh had heard pouring from the other side of the wall while Emily occupied the bathroom in her turn. He felt anxious: while he had imagined himself immune to certain emotions, he became aware, in his mid-thirties, that riddles still punctuated his life. A mind like his dreaded boredom, and Emily was a woman who could chase this misfortune. He could still hear her voice cracking when she told him about her feelings. Jindosh pitied her as he pitied himself.

When she returned, Emily turned off all the lights, plunging the room into darkness. The step still clumsy, she walked carefully, putting one foot after another while maintaining her balance.

“The light would help you.”

“No. I don’t want light.”

Jindosh had operated on her and already knew the scar around her hips, but Emily was not used to that mark yet, preferring to hide it. Especially for tonight.

“By the way, I hope you removed your prosthesis.”

“I don’t want you to damage it.”

“Like I was going to break what you made—”

The heavy rain continued to fall, striking the shutters, the windows, the facade. Despite pounding on the glass, Jindosh heard the towel fall to the ground. Then he guessed that Emily had just leaned on the edge of the mattress, concentrating her weight on her arms rather than her legs. She lay down beside him, sharing the warmth her skin still gave off. They dared not touch each other. It was not shyness, it was pride.

“No more ambiguity then?”

In the shadows, Jindosh guessed the hard look that accompanied this question. He leaned over and found her mouth to kiss. He placed a hand on her lower back. 

“There is no longer any ambiguity.”

The woman turned on her back, dragging him with her. She invited him to caress her chest, almost nonexistent, Jindosh knew it after all his observations, but he lingered his palms on these shy breasts, also granting caresses to the shoulders, arms. He felt a growing attraction for the heiress and she accentuated his desire by kissing his throat, his jaw, sometimes surprising him with a lick, then she wrapped her legs around the waist of her lover.

In the bedroom, everything was just suggested hints, shapes of velvet rustling on the sheets, and sometimes a flash of lightning shone in the room before roaring in the distance.

Since he did not want to be the only prisoner, Jindosh gripped her wrists and placed them over her head, choking her in a kiss. Thumb against Emily’s pulse, he noted the pulsations that accelerated as he pressed against her bruised body. It was a double-edged game: the more excited she was, the more he was. When Emily tightened her thighs, Jindosh strengthen his grip.

He did not see the smile on her lips. The young woman had him just like she imagined him: with an arrogance and a force that inspired a violent passion.

She felt his incomplete hand slip between her breasts, drawing a slow line to her navel, touching the lower abdomen before reaching her crotch. Emily closed her eyes and savored the contact.

“My mutilation doesn’t bother you?”

“On the contrary.” she did not care at all for this detail: his caresses between the lips of her sex alternated between gentleness and insistence, making her forget the rest. “Even with only three fingers, you’re quite good.” Emily added with a laugh.

“I’m glad to know that.” And Jindosh accentuated the pressure of his hand, tearing a moan from the young woman. Then another one close to a cry when he ventured beyond. His fingers slipping inside were like a key that steered Emily to spread her thighs further, freeing him from her embrace. A future Empress totally reduced to his mercy. The idea pleased him.

Ready to give him some pleasure too, Emily tried to free her wrists but Jindosh refused to let her go. Her strength was troubled by a desire to appreciate. But being totally submissive would feed the man’s pride too much and Emily would rather surprise him, just to remind him who she was. Her legs hugged him again and she caught him off guard with a pelvic motion to throw him to the side. Ignoring the hint of pain that burned in her leg after, Emily settled on Jindosh’s basin, adopting an empress position while arching. Being the dominated one this time, Jindosh stood on his elbows and preserved a semblance of equality with the noblewoman. Then she kissed him like she had the urge to kill him, devouring his lips, trying to knock him back but without success. Under her mouth, she felt a smile as he resisted the capricious assault.

Gentler, she caressed him, flattering his erection, exploring his crotch that few women had the honor to discover. They communicated only by sighs, agreeing their gestures. The storm had a metallic sound that contrasted with the softness they shared in their breath.

Impatient and at the same time languid, she welcomed him into her. The first penetration was always the most delicious and the gasp that Emily let out echoed through the room, filling Jindosh with pride, savoring every sensation she conveyed to him. He nibbled her breasts and the former mermaid started to wave like she had never done before. Whenever he moved in her, he snatched from her heart a plaintive sigh.

“Slowly, Emily, slowly—”

He held tightly her waist to preserve her and Emily slowed her movements but to accentuate them better. She loved his voice so much she could become a fanatic, so she asked him to repeat her name. And that name he hated so much, Jindosh pronounced it many times with tenderness.

Clinging to him like a drowning woman in this ocean of sheets, Emily felt like she melt: a fire liquefied the whole interior of her stomach, leaving her to die of happiness. Fascinated, Jindosh slammed her into his body and felt each tremor against him, around him. He heard she hold back a scream while curling up like a spider when it dies. The little death was as impressive as the big one. After an intense heat, Emily felt a cold envelop, giving the impression of falling. But she was still in this bed, still in Jindosh’s arms. The orgasm sometimes left a sensation of emptiness, but she felt fulfilled instead.

Orgasm gone with some loosing and Jindosh had refused to give in to this feeling at first, still too cautious for this mystery. He preferred to listen to Emily’s deep breathing, to notice how she shivers.

Dunwall’s newspapers did not speak of the enthusiasm of the heiress of the throne for love, and her lust surprised the inventor. Afterwards, Emily had followed Jindosh into the bathroom, showered with him, still in the dark, before kneeling near the bed to offer her mouth, making him discover more intimate and more surprising kisses. The locks of hair slipped on his thighs and the nails touched all this sensitive area. Jindosh had wondered where and when the heiress had learned to kiss a sex that way, this way to nibble and lick it, reviving and caressing in turn, but the Inventor, for the first time, did not want to know the answer and let Emily take care of him. He forgot the impression of being dominated. She sometimes felt on her tongue a taste of salt, confirming the pleasure she gave him. Then her hands replaced her mouth which ventured on the stomach of the man. Her gestures tore the first spasms from Jindosh and Emily approached his ear and called him by his name, although she doubted that the effect was as devastating as it was on her.

Finally, she killed him. Feeling his face close to hers, Jindosh kissed Emily as he felt a sudden warmth like an electric current burning his lower abdomen. His fingers tangled in the long black hair, gripping his executioner, holding her against him until the feeling evaporated, leaving him exhausted. He relaxed his embrace and left her, little by little, regaining her freedom.

Sitting cross-legged, Emily ran a towel over Jindosh’s stomach, wiping her hands at the same time. In the shadows, he could not see the triumphant air she wore to have made enjoy the man who had long imagined machine.

 

Lying on his back, Jindosh felt the muscles of his pelvis aching. He had the vague recollection that he had left his laboratory to rest after working, but in the end it was the body and mind that were now exhausted. They had spent a good part of the night making love with a medical sweetness sometimes supplanted by a fire quickly suppressed but still present.

“I think you’ve awakened muscles that I knew existed but were not active until now.”

She laughed and rubbed his groin, pressing the tips of her fingers into his flesh and exercising circular movements.

“Do you realize that we will have to repeat these experiments several times?”

“Because you liked or because you have things to check on the subject?”

Her fingers went back to his chest and Jindosh pressed them in his hand.

“Both.”

 

The facade of the Clockwork Mansion reflected the rare rays of the moon that the clouds allowed to pass. The high white walls seemed to gorge on this bluish light, rushing to the top of the forest like a rising moon.

Sitting on the edge of the cliff while Billie looked through the telescope, Blanche hummed with her broken voice. With this hard stamp, the witch seemed to be closer to rock than flora.

From what Billie was seeing, the mansion was plunged into darkness: there was not a lighthouse betraying the patrol of a Clockwork Soldier, not even the glare of a wall of light.

“They may have fled to Dunwall.” the observer suggested.

“Billie, I can’t cast spells if you interrupt my songs all the time. Jindosh and Kaldwin haven’t fled to Dunwall, the journalists are watching the docks, and if they weren’t so afraid of the Grand Inventor’s mansion, they would all be clutching his door. Anyway, it doesn’t change our plans.”

Frowning, the witch then resumed singing, having trouble concentrating again. Billie totally ignored her colleague and continued to inspect the surroundings. She knew the place better than Blanche and she had suggested going through the roof or the corridor without soil, giving the idea to the sorcerer to accelerate the growth of ivy and branches at the feet of the manor.

Despite the dim light, Billie saw a slow but steady movement, imitating the stubborn cadence of rats climbing a wall. The plants were building their ladder. Her cast done, Blanche got up and the two intruders took the direction of the manor.

The witch had hidden a detail: if Kirin Jindosh and Emily Kaldwin were absent, there was actually a change of plan. And if the Clockwork Soldiers were turned off, which would have been surprising, Blanche would not like the turn of events: she had received the same instructions as Claudia, which involved retrieving the documents Breanna needed and leaving the novice for dead. But Blanche had seen how she knew to fight and she counted on the deadly birds to settle the account of her colleague, knowing herself unable to compete with Billie despite her powers.

This woman was close to forty but was as quick and swift as a twenty-year-old fighter. Blanche had seen how her knife, a blade made for hunting, had sliced off the Inventor’s fingers without the flesh or bones showing the slightest resistance. In addition to her skills, Billie was intimidating with that square face, that stoic look. No, Blanche did not feel up to her.

This woman was close to forty but was as quick and quick as a twenty-year-old fighter. Blanche had seen how her knife, a blade made for hunting, had sliced off the Inventor's fingers without the flesh or bones showing the slightest resistance. In addition to her skills, Billie was intimidating with that square face, that stoic look. No, Blanche did not feel up to her.

She watched as the novice climbed the ivy, inserting her fingers into the good holds, weighing on her feet. Above their heads, the floor of the hallway was absent, freeing access in this trap all in length. Billie suppressed a shudder as she remembered how she had almost been sliced in half the last time she had been there. She could perhaps take revenge.

Blanche, more timid, let her colleague get ahead and did not enter the laboratory until after her. The dome was plunged into total darkness but noises rattled in this darkness. Gears for the most part, proving the existence of an artificial life in the recesses of this curious house. Distrustful in this hostile territory, Billie unsheathed her weapon. Breanna wanted the Inventor alive, yet she did not specify ‘whole’ and Billie would have liked to complete her work.

“The office is upstairs?”

“Yes.”

A butterfly flight would have been louder than their whispers. Blanche teleported to the upper floor and ventured to light a lighter to locate the office. Billie, meanwhile, feared to attract a possible enemy with a light and was listening to the slightest sound. With slow but precise steps, she turned to the elevator. It was unlikely that anyone would arrive in the corridor, but the elevator could be activated at any time.

As she set foot, Billie heard a slight click and froze. The laboratory’s blisters ignited suddenly, blinding the two intruders. And a horrible feeling seized them when they heard the voice of the Inventor wishing them good evening.

“ _I’m not mistaken if I suppose you’re witches? Maybe one of you is even at her second visit, but believe me, it will be the second and the last one._ ”

In a panic, Blanche recovered the most documents Breanna needed, stuffed them into her bodice and teleported to the floor below. The corridor through which they had entered was now passable and two Clockwork Soldiers were walking towards them. Shared between joy and fear, the witch looked at the novice. In her eyes, Billie understood her intend. She did not suspect the order about her death, but she knew that Blanche was going to abandon her, taking advantage of her powers.

“Too bad for you, Billie Lurk.”

And the witch passed through the robots in an ephemeral cloud. Billie heard the elevator on her back and knew she was trapped. If she were going to die tonight, she would fight until the end.

The fence opened on the Kaldwin heiress. And despite the situation, Billie remained admiring in front of that face of empress who dominated all emotion. She still stayed calm when she suddenly raised her voice.

“It’s her, Jindosh.”

“ _Perfect._ ”

And without understanding more, Billie was thrown forward, jostled by a mechanical bird. With her foot, she tried to hit the machine but it was a metal colossus and it had no effect. This olive-tree head shone under the blinding lamps, their lights duplicated by the blade that had just risen. Taking by a grand lassitude, Billie recognized death in that long skull and her last thought was for Deirdre. Her dear Deirdre.

The blade swung with an admirable precision, ready to face all the obstacles and its edge damaged the glass floor. Billie screamed: the machine had not killed her; she had just cut off her right arm. The woman looked at the forearm a few inches from her: the impact had been so soft, so clean that she thought she was the victim of an optical illusion, but when she moved her shoulder, the member remained inert on the ground.

Lost, blinded, she still managed to recognize the Grand Inventor who was looking her over. The hand she had cut was complete again and he used his prosthesis to smoke. Billie finally wondered if she was dead and if the afterlife was just a succession of hallucinations.

“I know, I know: you’ve only deprived me of two fingers, and I’m depriving you of a forearm. But I’ve always been a little excessive.”

Emily approached with chilling calm. A cord in her hands, she undertook to make a tourniquet to the victim. Billie was confused but obviously, the murder was not part of the projects of the Inventor and the heiress. She tried to fix her eyes on the dark eyes of the former mermaid.

“This is the third time we meet. I don’t intend to kill you, even though I let Jindosh take his revenge, and I hope I wouldn’t have to regret keeping you alive. Whoever you are, you’ll talk. You’ll give me information about your witch friends who’re trying to kill me.”

 

By taking care of his victim, Jindosh had prevented her from succumbing to a hemorrhage.

Before that night, Emily and he had agreed to wait for the witches’ visit, suspecting the return of the woman the heiress had already seen who would certainly serve as a scout. Emily’s first wish was to kill Billie, but she had changed her mind: keeping the enemy alive would help her discover the identity of her opponents. A wise decision because after a day of convalescence, Jindosh and Emily were surprised that the woman spoke with ease.

Billie knew that the witches would not come to rescue her. She had lost Deirdre, she had lost Claudia and the horizon of her life was a thick fog where death itself was not certain. And in this confusion, Billie felt a stubborn rancor against Breanna, pushing her to betray everything, hoping to be pardoned by the Empress and leave all that behind her. Moreover, Billie could now explain Jindosh’s cruel gesture against the woman she had loved: on several occasions, the woman had noticed how the Inventor’s hand brushed the heiress’ waist, how Emily leaned her head toward the man when they were side by side, how so stealthy and unconscious gestures brought the two people together, making their affection genuine. Billie had tried to kill the Inventor because he was responsible for Claudia’s death, and Jindosh had killed Claudia because she had tried to kill the heiress. Similar motivations, different couples. If Billie did not forgive him, she accepted that gesture.

The hostage then confessed the truth, but when she revealed to them that the curator Breanna Ashworth was at the head of this plot to free Delilah, neither Jindosh nor Emily believed her words. Evidently her word was not taken seriously: this stranger without a title and without a fortune was nothing compared to Lady Ashworth, a curator for years, a respectable woman and a confirmed artist. Since she did not get out of this story, Emily took the initiative to leave for Dunwall, taking advantage of the docility of her hostage: in the palace, she would know what to do with Corvo and maybe this coup, after seventeen interminable months, would finally end with a conclusion in favor of the Kaldwin.

And while the sun shone again on Karnaca, Emily was gone. She had kissed Jindosh, assuring him that she would come back, but the separation left a curious feeling of emptiness, as if the Outsider had taken up residence in her own heart. In the cabin of the boat, guarding Billie, Emily was trying to clarify the source of her discomfort: she was hoping that she would leave for Karnaca in about ten days, but there was something else, as if her instinct were waiting for a misfortune. The young woman comforted herself by thinking that the Inventor took advantage of his sudden loneliness to move forward in his plans so she had to follow his example, unaware that in fact the man was leaning on the inner balcony, observing the underground waterfall where the siren had bathed so many times.

Fascinated by what the others called coincidences, the Inventor remembered all the stages since his meeting with Emily Kaldwin. He remembered when he saw her in the cylinder of water that very first night: he had seen her as an extraordinary specimen, but he had never imagined how their relationship would progress. Each event was in its place in a well-defined timeline, of which he was convinced and his meeting with the heiress was not about chance.

Jindosh paced the hall, watching two Clockwork Soldiers on patrol. Number seven and number eight. How did Emily name them? Benjamin and Alfred? Samuel and John? He was not sure and it did not matter: in two short weeks, these Mechanical Soldiers would be given their nicknames again. At this idea, the Inventor smiled.

What he thought was his most beautiful creation needed improvements and Jindosh hoped to be able to work on a new version of the Soldiers with Emily: she was so agile and alert; he could draw inspiration from her for the movements of robots.

Jindosh prepared to join his lab when he heard visitors enter the atrium. Expecting no visit, he went down the steps of the hall to see Amos Finch accompanied by several men who wore the nurse’s uniform of Asylum of Karnaca. But it was on Breanna Ashworth that Jindosh stared at and he suddenly knew that the hostage had not lied.

“Come in, come in, although you don’t have an appointment, I always enjoy seeing familiar faces.”

“My dear Jindosh, I apologize, all my flatter apologies for coming out like this unexpectedly, but Lady Ashworth and I worry about your health.”

The little director of the asylum was sincere in expressing his regrets, blushing while the curator had this pale complexion and a complete lack of compassion.

“My mental health? Has it changed since the last rumors?” Jindosh asked without being intimidated. The group was surprised by the original prosthesis which confirmed, for some nurses, the madness of the individual.

“Have you seen the heiress Emily Kaldwin lately, Jindosh?” Ashworth’s voice was cold. After blowing a volute of tobacco, Jindosh replied with a grin:

“Of course not, no one has seen our empress’ daughter for over a year, I’m not so exceptional, Lady Ashworth.”

“Then how do you explain this?”

In Breanna’s hands, Jindosh recognized the sketches and notes he had taken on Emily when she was still a mermaid. Without the silvergraphs that had been intelligently neglected, the file on the naiad looked like the account of an insulting fantasy for the imperial family.

The Grand Inventor knew he was trapped. He ventured, however, to be detached.

“Theories for imagination, nothing more. Witches attacked our empress, I wondered if they hadn’t transformed the heiress to make her disappear. Maybe you know what it is, Lady Ashworth: these witches are totally degenerate.”

“You insult especially the Kaldwin family by imagining the heiress half-naked and turned into a monster. Despite the clemency of our empress, I doubt that Jessamine Kaldwin would be amused.”

“Lady Ashworth, it may not be necessary to go so far, to go that far—”

Amos Finch had not dared to loosen his lips while the Curator and the Inventor were engaged in their verbal jousting. The woman glanced at the doctor, implying that he had to pronounce the order that had been agreed between them. And with an uncertain voice, doctor Finch announced:

“Jindosh, we’re convinced that you need rest, a good rest. I took nurses with me to avoid any refusal but don’t do the difficult, please I don’t want them to hurt you.”

To everyone’s surprise, Jindosh laughed.

“Are you arresting me?”

“We’re asking you to follow us for your own good, for the sake of your mind; you’re working way too much.”

“I already see the titles of tomorrow. The Grand Inventor, after being assaulted, is interned in the Asylum of Karnaca! The _Karnaca Gazette_ will talk about me for a long time.”

Despite the feeling of abandonment, Jindosh accepted his fate.


End file.
